BJA enlists Adams in new coaching strategy; Judo.(Sport).

For the first time since he left the competitive scene after the last Olympic Games, Neil Adams, the former world light-middleweight champion, travels with the British team as a coaching assistant on its trip to the Austrian open championships at Leonding this weekend.

It is part of a new policy at the British Judo Association to enlist the help of recently retired leading players, and could not have come at a more opportune moment.

The next important event is the world championships in Belgrade in October, and it is significant that selection for at least five of the seven weight categories in the men's team is open. Neither of the two featherweights from Kendal, Mark Preston and Mark Adshead, can claim ascendancy over the other. In the lightweights, Roy Stone, back from a horrific thumb injury which wiped out the first half of this year, must show better form than Stephen Ravenscroft if he wants a ticket to Belgrade.

There is not much to chose between the two light-middleweights, Dave Southby, from London, and Fitztroy Davis, from the famous Wolverhampton club. And it is astonishing to see how Nicolas Kokotaylo, aged 31, from Manchester, has clawed his way back into contention in the light-heavyweight division as Dennis Stewart, the Olympic bronze medal winner, struggles with poor form.

``I feel I have got a lot to offer the boys, particularly on the judo mat itself,'' Adams said, ``but I am going out to Austria this weekend really to give an outsider's point of view.'' He opens his own judo club in Coventry next week.

Copyright (C) The Times, 1989

Source Citation:"BJA enlists Adams in new coaching strategy; Judo." The Times (London, England) (June 30, 1989): NA. Academic OneFile. Gale. Alachua County Library District. 26 Oct. 2009
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