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| Karen
Roberts Hilary Wolf |
| TWOJ
Player Profiles KAREN ROBERTS (GBR) -63kg |
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Date
of Birth: Oct. 26, 1976 Fact
File : Awards: Top
finishes: |
| In
her own words... Hi, my name is Karen Roberts. I am an international judo player and I train at Pinewood Judo Club under the tuition of my coach, Don Werner. I am 23 years old and compete in the under 63 kg event, at which I recently won a bronze medal at the 1999 World Judo Championships in Birmingham. This was my best ever result and qualified me for a seeded place at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. I have been improving rapidly and at the World championships I exceeded expectations and produced my best judo yet. My sights are now set on Sydney where I will be competing in the Olympic Games for the first time. I started judo at the age of 8 on a course at my local Sports Centre, St Crispins. After the course I was advised to go to Pinewood, where I have trained ever since. I attended the Holt School in Wokingham until I had completed my A levels. During this I won the International schools championships and a Junior World title. On leaving school I went to work for Xtrac Ltd, producers of Motorsport transmissions, to help me fund my training. By this time I was travelling all over the World for competitions and training events so this was much needed income. After sometime at Xtrac I left to go to Brunel University to study Materials Science and Engineering so that I could gain a qualification for life after judo. I still have one year of my course to complete, which I will do after the Olympics. My studies have been going very well so far and I am currently on course for a 1st class degree. I have always been studying or working while competing and I feel the two have complemented each other. However I have deferred my final year for one year so that I may concentrate on the Olympics in September 2000. I started 1999 in Japan at the Fukuoka Cup, which is one of the hardest tournaments on the calendar, and I earned a very creditable 5th place. This gave me a great boost and at my next 'A' tournament in Austria I won the gold medal. As the year has progressed, my judo has gone from strength to strength. I took the British Open title in April and was then selected to represent Great Britain at the 1999 World Student Games, the world's second largest sporting event. There I won the Silver medal which not only delighted me, but also my University. In October I took Bronze at the World championships, thus qualifying for the Olympics, and that was the icing on the cake for 1999. Now, I have to start all over again in the millennium, when all my training and competitions will be geared towards achieving my ultimate goal - winning an OLYMPIC GOLD medal. As a result, I will be training full time and to do so I need all the help I can get. I am looking for sponsorship, to aid my quest for Olympic glory, so that I can afford to travel to the best tournaments and the best training camps. If anyone can help me in this area, or knows anyone who can, please contact me at: karenroberts@twoj.org. |
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