Lisa Kearney qualifies for London 2012

Irish Judo Association

Hi everyone

'The Board of the Irish Judo Association would like to congratulate Lisa Kearney on her outstanding performances over the last 2 years to earn a qualifying place in the London 2012 games. Following a long and tough qualification process, Lisa & her coach Ciaran Ward have been duly rewarded with an Olympic place this summer. The Board & its' members have been wholly supportive of Lisa's campaign & are delighted that such a wonderful ambassador for the sport of judo has achieved her Olympic dream. The Association would like extend their best wishes to Lisa's parents & family who have been an immense support to Lisa over her career. The Board would like to thank the Irish Sports Council, the Olympic Council of Ireland, Sport NI, The Institute of Sport and Sports Institute Northern Ireland for the continuous support received over the last 2 years. We wish Lisa the very best for London 2012.

regards
Deirdre
IJA office

Kimura

That's Brilliant, Congratulations Lisa

Such an achievement to qualify, very tough

Well done and best of luck in London.

cowzerp

Great news for Irish Judo, Well done Lisa

turfthrower

That really is fantastic news. Lisa is a star who has worked really hard. Anyone who does any kind of martial arts should be thrilled to see her win this opportunity.

I always like watching judo in the olympics but I'll have a special reason to get excited about it this year.

Barry.Oglesby

Well done to all involved. One more reason to be cheerful for this summer.

Pride Fighter

Congratulations and well done to her.

chprt

congrats lisa and all involved

paddy

underachieved

Congrats to lisa, her family, coaches and all involved......Grat news!!!

EnjoyChoke

"Congratulations" just doesn't seem to cut it when you've qualified for the Olympics. Unbelievable achievement!


...wonder what her coaches Body Mass Index is though?

TrollHammaren

Flipping delighted to see this! Most sincere congratulations to her!

Hopefully now mainstream Irish media will actually know what Judo is.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Here's a good VT interview with Lisa, her coach and physio on BBC Northern Ireland.

CLICK HERE.

nobbo

Now I'm glad I got tickets for the first day of olympic judo

arybvtcw0eolkf

nobbo wrote: »

Now I'm glad I got tickets for the first day of olympic judo

The forum hates you now :mad:

just-joe

I soooooooooooooo wish I was going to the Olympics now!!

Amazing achievement, great judoka and athlete, and will be great to see an Irish judoka compete in London.

Tim_Murphy

Unbelievable achievement, congrats to her and everybody involved.

It'll be great advertising for Judo in Ireland no doubt too.

r_obric

Great achievement and a pity the Irish media have not picked up on it as much as the other athletes.

What are her chances of a podium finish? is anybody fimiliar with the division?

CIARAN_BOYLE

r_obric wrote: »

Great achievement and a pity the Irish media have not picked up on it as much as the other athletes.

What are her chances of a podium finish? is anybody fimiliar with the division?

Not at all familiar but one of the paper pieces said that she qualified on the basis of being 14th in the world rankings in her division (metro herald). If so then There is supposedly 11 better judokas there in her division who would have better chances than her.

slammer187

CIARAN_BOYLE wrote: »

Not at all familiar but one of the paper pieces said that she qualified on the basis of being 14th in the world rankings in her division (metro herald). If so then There is supposedly 11 better judokas there in her division who would have better chances than her.

It only means that the other competitors were better than her at the time the rankings were made.

nobbo

r_obric wrote: »

Great achievement and a pity the Irish media have not picked up on it as much as the other athletes.

What are her chances of a podium finish? is anybody fimiliar with the division?

Being realistic, not great. But again, anything can happen over the space of 5 fights, and hopefully Lisa can perform on the day....something she's always been good at.

...and hopefully there'll be a decent Irish support there to cheer her on!

nobbo

http://wimps.tv/stories/lisa-heads-for-olympics/

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=333362676733366

arybvtcw0eolkf

Burnt

A nice bit of exposure in that for Lisa and Judo. I notice the other girl is wearing
a "Joshi" obi/belt, can be seen at 5s and 10s, quite unusual outside of Japan.

Opinicus

Got tickets for the early session on the Tuesday. What weight is she? Probably 48s or 52s? Then she should be fighting on the fri or sat. Damn it! Some of the lads have tickets for those days though so at least some of us will get to see her fighting live.


Edit: yeah just checked there and she's 48s. The first day of Judo. Damn you nobbo!

nobbo

Tickets should have arrived/been arriving for most people...Anyone else on here heading over?

Opinicus

Yeah some of tha lads who bought in the first round got there tickets last Friday. I got one ticket for the afternoon session on the Saturday (Mens 60s and Womens 48s) but I only bought it during the second round (a fortnight ago) so it will hopefully arrive soon enough. There's at least 4 of us going from Kerry.

arybvtcw0eolkf

From Lisa on FB this morning;

dexa scan today, 5.8% body fat and some stupid amount of muscle...lean mean fighting machine!

And an Judo postage stamp from the games.

RainMaker

Alvaro Salmon Hash wrote: »

And an Judo postage stamp from the games.

Blue needs to work on his breakfalls
The picture seems to make more sense if you look at it sideways - at least then it could be newaza
As it is that head first into the ground with legs pointing straight into the air pose just looks weird!

arybvtcw0eolkf

RainMaker wrote: »

Blue needs to work on his breakfalls
The picture seems to make more sense if you look at it sideways - at least then it could be newaza
As it is that head first into the ground with legs pointing straight into the air pose just looks weird!

My Osoto Gari was countered last November and I came down like that!.

I was knocked out, by someone 30'ish kgs lighter than me ~ perfect technique beats weight & strength.

arybvtcw0eolkf

This is well worth a read, there's also an embedded video clip of Lisa being interviewed and showing some of her training.

CLICK HERE.

just-joe

Is it against the rules to ask where I can watch this on the internet? I do not own a television.

Doug Cartel

just-joe wrote: »

Is it against the rules to ask where I can watch this on the internet? I do not own a television.

I was actually going to ask this myself.

Are RTE going to be showing it? What alternatives are there?

Also, Joe your options are probably going to be different to ours, as these things are usually restricted by country.

Opinicus

The most important parts of this article

If there are going to be 12 streams then surely one will be used for Lisa when she is competing.

RTÉ.ie’s London 2012 section - www.rte.ie/sport/olympics - plans to offer users up to 12 high-definition video streams each day during the Games. In addition, users will also be able to stream RTÉ Sport’s comprehensive television and radio output.
RTÉ’s 12 HD video streams from London 2012 – providing an estimated 2,000 hours of coverage from the greatest sporting spectacle in the world – will be available to users online and on mobile.

RTÉ will be using social media to bring fans closer to the Olympic Games than ever before using the @RTELondon2012 twitter account and RTE Sport Facebook page.
We'll have updates when every Irish athlete is due to compete and how to follow their progress, all the breaking news as it happens and behind-the-scenes content from our teams on the ground in London.

If you're not in Ireland:

If you are travelling or on holidays in Europe during the Olympic Games you can also stay in touch with how the Irish are faring in London by watching RTÉ’s television coverage live via the EBU’s Olympic Portal at www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/.
The EBU’s Olympic Portal will be online from 24 July to 31 August inclusive, and will carry all of RTÉ Two’s televised Olympic programming.

EDIT: Just saw the schedule here: SCHEDULE and Judo isn't marked (FFS they're covering 3 days of BMX and they can't cover 1 day of Judo). So highlights will probably really only be shown if she does well.

Alternatively I'm sure the BBC will be covering everything.

Doug Cartel

The IJA updated their facebook to say that it will be on RTE2.

Opinicus

Okay pay no attention to my last post regarding the schedule. Kind of puzzling why RTE don't mark it though.

Doug Cartel

Even if it's supposed to be on the telly, I think I'll keep a computer handy in case they decide to show something else.

Also they probably won't show all the matches in the division, so if you want to make a morning of it, you might be best off on the computer.

just-joe

I thought I was sorted but then I clicked the eurosports link and it doesn't work for me here.. and rte player doesn't work either.

It's a bit silly cos even if I did have a telly, they will most probably only show the japanese judoka. So maybe the japanese internet streams would be the same. But maybe there are some japanese websites which have full coverage though. I'll keep searching..

r_obric

Anyone know dates & times for the fights?

Doug Cartel

09:30 on Saturday.

The full schedule is here http://www.london2012.com/judo/schedule-and-results/index.html

SaoriseBiker

nobbo wrote: »

Now I'm glad I got tickets for the first day of olympic judo

And boy do you think the rest of us are jealous :mad: ........

washman3

So close Lisa, was a fantastic display against the Chinese girl who is ranked no.7 in the world and taking the fight to extra time. while my knowledge of judo is extremely limited, i honestly felt Lisa did enough to win. (but i may be severely biased). Well done to Lisa anyway.

cowzerp

I think you are been biased.
The Chinese girl was more positive and going for more-Lisa fought hard but just a little bit negative I felt.

Ps, her body fat is not near 5%
That for a lady would be very unhealthy, 8-12% is essential fat for women so below this is unlikely, plus she would look gaunt as anything if that was the case

Hard luck Lisa.

Opinicus

Missed her match because I only had tickets for the afternoon session but the lads saw her and said she put in a good effort. Really when it goes to golden score it must be nerve wracking as the smallest error can cost you the match.

Big surprises with Fukumi not medalling and Sobirov only taking a bronze. Galtsyan's throw in the final was class. Definitely the ippon of the afternoon session.

Doug Cartel

Everyone else who got a bronze looked over the moon, but Sobirov looked so disappointed. He seemed to be in total control of of the match with Galtsyan, but then a slight slip up during extra time.

Galtsyan's ippon of Hiraoka was crazy. I was certain he was going to lose when Hiraoka lifted him for the te-guruma, and then somehow he slips out to reverse it.

Hiraoka's winning throw in his semi-final was really good as well. The basic seoi-nage into ko-soto that's one of the first combinations you learn.

COYW

Was over on Tuesday and have been watching the coverage daily on the Beeb. My morning session ran over by a good 30 mins due to the amount of contests which went to golden score. What was the reasoning behind the removal of the koka and also direct leg grabs? I take it Morote Gari is a thing of the past.

Was Lisa's contest on TV after all? The Beeb didn't show it.

Opinicus

Anyone else who was there think that they really ****ed up the seating? I had tickets for two days (£95 & £30). No real difference between the seating, certainly not £60 worth. The seating blocks paid no resemblance to the map they had released previously. Piles of empty seats all over the place, not just in the accredited area.
I was at the second session on the Saturday and the guy sitting next to me with his son knew nothing about Judo. I was explaining the rules and scores to him. There is no way he paid £190 for 2 seats to a sport he didn't know anything about. I counted at least 30 empty seats in the immediate rows around me.
I was at the early session on the Tuesday and there was a family alongside us. They left after about an hour. The 2 kids were playing their DS' the whole time. Again piles of empty seats around us.
So I have two theories, either the seating arrangement/system was banjaxed and the price you paid bore no relation to the quality of seat you got or companies were buying up loads of tickets (privately outside the % corporate allocation) and giving them away like candy to people who had no interest in Judo. Kind of sad when you had people standing outside with signs looking for tickets.

On a better note one of my friends was at the second session on the Tuesday and his seat was unavailable for some reason and he was being given a crappy seat in the nosebleeds so he kicked up a fuss (I think his ticket was £125) and he got upgraded to the VIP section. The 2 rows of seats practically matside. He was rubbing shoulders with IOC members, IJF execs and national coaches. He was right behind the guys with the replay monitors. Lucky bastard.


@COYW: I doubt Lisa was shown, I only saw them show highlights of GB players, but everything was being shown live on the BBC streams online. Even online the could only show one of the mats so I don't know if she was on that either.

COYW

Opinicus wrote: »

Anyone else who was there think that they really ****ed up the seating? I had tickets for two days (£95 & £30). No real difference between the seating, certainly not £60 worth. The seating blocks paid no resemblance to the map they had released previously. Piles of empty seats all over the place, not just in the accredited area.

I was at the early session on the Tuesday and there was a family alongside us. They left after about an hour. The 2 kids were playing their DS' the whole time. Again piles of empty seats around us.

Kind of sad when you had people standing outside with signs looking for tickets.

The seating was really strange alright. I was sitting in an £85 seat for the morning session on Tuesday and it was located in one of the corners of the arena. I was expecting the seat to be far more central in relation to the contest area. There was some amount of empty seats at that session and the morning sessions in general. Complete rows were empty near the back in the non-corporate blocks.

The 3 seats beside me at that session were empty for the most-part. A Japanese mother and daughter came in for the last hour. Tickets became available for most of the morning sessions last weekend. There were tickets for sale yesterday for the session tomorrow afternoon.

Opinicus

Were you in 409 by any chance? I was right in a corner seat also.

COYW

Opinicus wrote: »

Were you in 409 by any chance? I was right in a corner seat also.

No, 404 on the border of 405.

Opinicus

You were right above where they left the mat area so I'd say?

COYW

Opinicus wrote: »

You were right above where they left the mat area so I'd say?

Yep. They left the contest arena just to my left. Was within touching distance.

SaoriseBiker

Does Lisa Kearney ever do any trianing with fellow Belfast woman and outstanding BJJer Caoimhe McGill ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgtGrps7N1k