BRITISH JUDO PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE

Willesden Judo Club and the British Judo Association, working together, would you believe, have finally come up with a plan for the next four years to give Britain a chance of Olympic medals in 2012.

For a year now Willesden have been running their version of a full-time training programme and with excellent results.

Joe Calzaghe, Britain's top class boxer, uses a 10 week intensive training period leading up to important matches, and Willesden have followed suit.

The main problem with Judo in Britain is the lack of high quality Randori, both in terms of quality and numbers. Last year this was fixed in the first intensive programme leading up to the Junior European Championships, with eight training camps in eight different countries and a series of tough international tournaments.

The results were excellent: firstly four of the team came from Willesden and secondly Ashley won a bronze in the under 60kg weight.

The second intensive training period, targeting the Bremen u20 International tournament, resulted in Britain's only two medals: Ashley silver and JR bronze.

All sorts of speculation has been circulated regarding how the talented crew at Willesden were going to progress, and now it can be revealed.

10 of its most talented members are going to be the first group to start day time training at the newly established British Judo Performance Institute.

The target event is the Junior World Championships in Bangkok, Thailand, in October. The programme includes many international training camps, interspersed with weeks at the BJPI and another series of tought international competitions.

Day one is on Tuesday 8th April and it will be filmed by the BBC as the start of something special for British Judo, for Willesden Judo Club and for the medal hopes in 2012.

After the first few weeks it is believed that other likely members of the 2008 Junior World team will be invited to take part and if successful this opportunity will be opened up to others, with 2012 ambitions, in January 2009.