Swag of medals for East Ocean

BIG HAUL: East Ocean Jiu Jitsu team members returned home from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu National Championships with 16 medals. Members of the team were, back (from left): Karn Payne, Hayze Middleton-Bennett, Tom Purcell, Matt Donaldson, Leo Pereira, Steve Webb, Sebastian Lopez and Leighvi Maynard. Middle: Luke Riwaka, Robbie Cleland-Pottie, Adam Bartlett, Simon White, Paul Jefferson and Kara Te Whata-Maynard. Front: Ohaia Gillman, Kowhai Cleland-Pottie, Renee Wikaire, Nick Webb, Sacha Jackson, Bevan Brooking, Tanya Jackson, Alisha Te Rangiita and Tihema Johnson. Absent: Sam Kerr and Matt Natad. Picture supplied

A 25-strong East Ocean Jiu Jitsu team came home with 16 medals from the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu National Championships in Auckland.

The Gisborne-based East Ocean team did the fifth-best of the 35 teams who took part.

A record 617 entries were received for the event, which was again hosted by NZ Grappler.

The juniors started competition early in the day. Gisborne Boys’ High students Ohaia Gillman and Luke Riwaka submitted both their opponents to advance to the final together. Gillman used his slight size advantage to beat Riwaka on points in a close match.

Kowhai Cleland-Pottie used her judo training to dominate her matches and win gold.

Team coach Sacha Jackson started the adult competition for the day in the masters’ black-belt division. After comfortably dispatching his semifinal opponent he faced 2nd-degree black belt Marcelo Lopes in the final. He drew level with Lopes on points at the end of the match, but lost on a referee decision.

Bevan Brooking comfortably won all his brown-belt matches to retain both his brown-belt national title from 2016, and to remain undefeated in his belt division for the past five years.

In masters’ purple-belt divisions, Nick Webb won gold in the under-88-kilogram division and Paul Jefferson won bronze in the u82kg division.

Robbie Cleland-Pottie narrowly lost his opening-round match to a competitor 20 years his junior.

Simon White, Alisha Te Rangiita, Steve Webb and Leo Pereira came back from semifinal losses to win medals in their blue-belt divisions.

Sam Kerr was unlucky to draw the eventual winner of his division in the blue-belt u94kg division, eliminated early in what should have been a final. Matt Natad fought well but lost his first match against another eventual finalist.

The large team of white belts, some competing for the first time, had mixed results.

Tihema Johnson and Renee Wikaire submitted all of their opponents to win gold medals. Tanya Jackson and Kara Te Whata-Maynard fought bravely to earn silver and bronze respectively. Leighvi Maynard and Karn Payne duelled in a bronze-medal match in which Maynard prevailed.

Hayze Middleton-Bennett was denied a first-up win by a referee error and was eliminated early, along with competition newcomers Tom Purcell, Matt Donaldson and Sebastian Lopez. In their losses, all four newcomers showed plenty of promise for future competition.