Sport Hall Beverwijk “de Walvis”
Van Loenenlaan 1
Beverwijk

Below is the program Dale played in the Level 4 and Corey in Level 1

Friday April 4th: program
09.00 – 09.30 hours  Meeting and warming up
09.30 – 10.30 hours   Clinics over eight mats    Part 1
10.30 – 11.00 hours    Pause
11.00 – 12.00 hours    Clinics over eight mats    Part 2
12.00 – 13.00 hours    Lunch 
13.00 – 14.00 hours    Open forum for all Chair Herman Rurup
                               "European competition level 1 and 2"
14.00 – 15.00 hours    Workshop "Judo with a functional disorder"
Ben van der Eng, Cees Roest, Daniël Noordhoek and Susanna Makkinje.

15.00 – 16.00 hours    Workshop '"autism'" Thijs Linsen
16.00 – 17.30 hours Presentation of awards/charters to participants
 
          The clinics were given by top judoka’s, former Dutch Olympic, World or European champions who were supported by experienced judo teachers for the disabled.
In the afternoon there was a special program for the judoka's, this was organized by
the foundation G-judo and Prisma volunteers. The organization provided transportation to the sight-seeing location of (Zaanse Schans).

All coaches, trainers, teachers, referees from abroad were invited to take part in seminar together with the Dutch students, the official language was English.
(There was an official English/Dutch interpreter).
 For the sight-seeing there were volunteers to escort the judokas so the coaches could attend the workshops which were put on while the Judokas were site seeing.

Saturday, April 5th, 2008: program

08.00 hours      Arrival 1e contestants-group and guests.
08.30 hours      Opening tournament.
08.35 hours      Start Morning-competition-block.
12.00 hours      At the Morning Award Ceremony awards both Corey and Dale were awarded the first ever medals for Australian SN Judo they were both Bronze

12.30 hours      Pause 
13.30 hours      Start Afternoon-competition-block

17.00 hours      At the Afternoon award Ceremony Corey and Dale were both awarded Gold.

I believe these two athletes to have made remarkable history by attending this event and to walk away with a Bronze and Gold each and playing against more experienced players who had played at this year Special Olympics in Beijing. It just amazed me, and by the way after Dales first fight he came off and was over the moon and his shoulder was fine, yes nerves are a big thing with all people 

17.30 hours      Finalization of Tournament
20.00 hours   The Disco was a big success with the players letting down their hair and mixing in
–   23.30     with the other players
   
Sunday 6th 2008:      We also joined Scandinavian guests sightseeing and farewell them that afternoon.
 We stayed on for another 5 days and in that time we continued to train at  Ben’s club

General Information:
The tournament was divided in a morning and an afternoon competition.
There was an open class competition for level 1 and 2 judokas. This competition used the main stream weight categories. Each judoka was weighed by the tatami 1 and 2, in front of the jury table. They started with the lowest weight category and when a judoka weighed heavier than he was registered, it was possible to have that person fight in a higher weigh class. This competition started in the morning and lasted all day.
The competition was played on 8 tatami, judged by 3 referees, 3 table officials and guided by 2 tatami assistants recognizable by the coloured  T/ shirts red (aka) and white (shiro). The contest-space was only accessible for participants and their accompanists.
We had about 540  judoka’s participating in total morning and afternoon competitions and we had 3000 matches for the whole day, the mat area did not conform to the normal IJF size however it all worked well the referees were totally unbelievable and I did make a comment to them as a group of how impressed I was  .
No entry-fee and a free lunch-package were provided for all judoka’s, coaches and foreign supporters. All judokas and coaches were given a free Judo4All 2008 T-shirt as well.

Organization Saturday:
08.00 am – Arrival Judo-contestants  
Coaches receive the game-cards and coach-buttons at the entrance, in an envelope.
For every participant there is a coloured game-card with the persons name, mat-number and pool-number. This coloured card corresponds with the number and colour of the balloons, the concerning official table at the judo-mat. Lunch tickets will be provided at the same time.

I found this card system different at first however it was great and the players had a bench to be near so the tournament ran very smoothly
 
09.00 am – Opening ceremony  
Mayor of Beverwijk

09.15 am – Judo-contests morning group 
Tycho van der Werff is conducting the contest-secretariat.
Referees were coordinated by Mrs. Jenny Koster.
Table officials were coordinated by Mr. Dennis Sissing.
Even sufficient information has been supplied as how to fill in the game-forms to form the pools ahead of time.
One very important thing was the organisers were able
Change the pools during the competition. Off course in cooperation with the concerning coach and head referee, while I didn’t see this happen, it showed me the concern for fair play that was demonstrated by the organisers.
.
The pool-classification was based on Judo Skills Classification, not based on the limitation of the judoka’s. Pools with more than 7 judoka’s were divided in two pool sections which were reversed by mid-competition between 1st and 2nd of the pool sections.
By pools less than 4 competitors, there will be a full competition, where the judoka’s fight each other twice, once on red and once on white.
Results were measured by competition points by a draw judo points, still a draw after that, then the judoka’s will fight the final game without golden score.
11.35 am – Award ceremony  
12.00 am – Lunch  
The organization will supply free lunch-package only by handing over a lunch ticked.
13.00 pm – Opening and homage  
  Ben van der Eng awarded the Dutch Special Needs judoka of the year.
13.30 pm – Start afternoon program   
See morning competition.
16.40 pm – Award-Ceremony   
17.10 pm – Referee ceremony  
17.30 pm – Finalizing the tournament  
I was so impressed with the development of disabled judo thoughout Europe that i hope to create a mirror image of this great achievement here in Australia, with the help of Ben van der Eng and his team of volunteers.  Our dutch host looked after us like royalty and we were very grateful for their support. You could not ask for better hosts than the ones we had.

During our stay we visited a number of special needs judo clubs with Ben and enjoyed our stay immensly. While their training methods were different to ours with a lot more game related activities, it still achieved the goals that any coach would be looking for, while making it more enjoyable for the players.

Image Gallery