Belfast's Kearney not worried about draw for Olympics judo

By Joe Finegan

After her experience with injuries over the years, tomorrow's draw for the ladies' judo 48kg (about seven and a half stone) category won't faze Lisa Kearney.

She won't even look at the draw, which takes place at 10am tomorrow morning at the ExCel Arena in the Olympic Park, until she has begun her warm up on Saturday. Worrying about what's down the line isn't in Kearney's psyche.

Kearney will be too busy prepping her kit, too busy focusing on her own game, too busy visualising her performance. She knows her own ability and has confidence in it. She knows her limitations and she knows what she can achieve. She knows if she gets the rub of the mat, she could surprise everyone. “People can get caught up in the draw,” she says.

Kearney is 23, national champion, coached by a former Olympian, and has the world at her feet. She has been "playing judo", as she calls it, since she was eight. There was a judo exhibition in her primary school which hooked her in right from the start. She joined a club with a friend and she loved it.

“My coach realised quite early on that I could be quite good, but I didn’t realise that at all – it was just good fun to me,” she says. “It was only in secondary school that I began to take it more seriously.

“I played judo for a year before I even entered a competition – and after that, I didn’t win even one fight for two years,” she says laughing. “But I was enjoying it. I was just fighting against local kids - the standard wasn’t that high, but my coach saw something in me even though I was losing all the time. And then one day I won gold at some local competition, and then I just kept winning and winning - something just clicked and I couldn’t stop!”

Judo tends to be all about technique. There is no striking. It involves more wrestling and grappling techniques. The aim is to throw your opponent flat on their back (that’s called an ‘ippon’). That gains the most points, but points can be earned by strangling or arm-locking. Even though there is no striking, Kearney admits it ‘can get a bit rough’.

“You need to be really fit and really, really strong,” she says in her melodic Belfast lilt. “A senior fight lasts five minutes; extra time is a further three minutes. But for five full minutes you play as hard as you possibly can - the person you're facing is trying to beat you up, so you need to be physically strong as well as fit.”

Kearney trains full-time at a judo centre of excellence in Edinburgh, where she also studies psychology at Heriot Watt University, but she trains under the overall guidance of Ciaran Ward, who has been her coach for all of her judo life at the Yamakwai Judo Club in Belfast. Ward represented Ireland in judo at two Olympics (Barcelona in 1992 and Atlanta 1996) and is also Irish national coach.

Kearney’s official world ranking heading to London is 19 in her weight category. Her Olympic ranking is 15 with the top 14 automatically qualifying. She qualifies for the Olympics as being 1st in the continental quota for Europe. Three other girls qualified behind her.

She cemented her qualification back in April and will become the first woman to represent Ireland in judo at the Olympics but she had to work hard for that honour.

Last year, she travelled to far-flung places all across Europe in search of valuable qualification points.

“I was doing so much travelling and fighting twice a month but I was just following the points. There was a whole group of us doing that in my weight category.”

Despite the success, it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Kearney.

“From 2006 to 2008, just as I was breaking into the senior scene I had five operations,” she says. “It was quite a difficult time. I just kept getting injured. I injured my anterior cruciate ligament in my knee (out for 12 months). Then I injured my right shoulder – I was nine months out with a SLAP tear. I injured my two thumbs. My left thumb had to be reconstructed, and I had completely wrecked all the ligaments on my right thumb and the doctors had to fuse the bone and joint together because the ligaments were too far gone. I also had a sinus operation for medical reasons but all-in-all I was two years out.”

It says a lot about Kearney’s outlook on life that she adds: “At least I’ve had nothing serious.”

To add insult, early this year, she tore ligaments in her knee again, missing four tournaments.

“In a tournament in January, I hurt my knee in a fight,” she recalls. “I fought on but it was a wee bit sore. I had four more fights that weekend and I got through them. But the next day, it was very sore. Back in Belfast, my physio had a look at it and I knew I’d be out for four full months.

“It was nerve-wracking but I was lucky. The two girls who could have overtaken me didn’t get good enough results while I was out injured. It was a relief that I was in a pretty good position before I got injured. It wasn’t that bad an injury, but came at a really bad time.

“Now I’m in great shape physically and mentally. I’ve been really busy but not setting difficult training goals. I’m very relaxed but I’m sure I will get slightly nervous as my first fight gets closer. My training has tapered off over the past couple of weeks so I’ve had a bit of time to think and prepare mentally. The day I got my Asics Olympic Ireland team kit it really hit home what’s about to happen.”

Leading the charge in Kearney’s extra lightweight 48kg division are the Japanese (Tomoko Fukumi is the one to beat) and the current Olympic champion, Romanian Alina Alexandra Dumitru. However, a focused Kearney isn’t bothered about the opposition.

“I think all athletes put pressure on themselves,” she says. “I’m not putting huge expectations on my shoulders. I’ll be going for gold obviously, but if I fight well I know I can do well. I’m not one of the seeds but it’s a random draw so anything can happen.”