Judo: “I will bring back the glory days,” promises new Chairman
Monique Athanase is back as the head of the Judo Association
Judo is expected to get a new lease of life under the new
elected executive committee
Two years after being ousted out in a controversial manner, members of the Judo Association voted to bring Monique Athanase back as head of the sport for the next two years.
Miss Athanase received the majority votes during Judo’s annual General meeting last weekend and she has vowed to put order back into the association and to bring back the glory days. “It is like a normal process because even if I was out of the association I was still in contact with many members. They had been asking me to put my name down for election. I stepped aside so that the former committee members could prove themselves but it seems that the members were not satisfied with their work and have decided to put me back in office with a new committee. So I am happy because I will work in the interest of the athletes as they had been affected a lot during the past two years,” she told TODAY Sports.
Miss Athanase feels that the new committee is a solid one. The Vice-Chairman is Jimmy Valentin, the new Secretary General is Paddy King, and the treasurer is Harry Arnephy. The new referees Director is Stephen Joubert whilst the sport director is Terry Mothe. Brigitte Rose is in charge of media and communications. Maxime Payet heads the disciplinary committee and Calixt Cesar is the national team head coach.
All members of the new committee are from a judo club. It seems that the sport will be going through a revival this year as some new clubs have registered. There are currently eight clubs which fall under the association with four from Mahe and the other four from Praslin.
Miss Athanase first served as judo chairman from 2012 to 2014. She was removed from the post in a controversial manner after being accused of running the executive committee in a dictatorial manner. After that a long dispute started culminating in two opposing camps: Praslin and Mahe. She replaces Mervin Joubert who had been acting Chairman since 2014.
Under her chairmanship though, judo won the best federation of the year; best coach and best athlete of the year. Dominic Dugasse even qualified for the Olympic Games. “My aim is to continue the work I was doing two years ago and bring judo to new heights. I will be targeting the youths mostly as we have a good group coming up and they need the necessary support so that they can replace the elite judokas when they retire in a few years time. We have good young athletes with good potentials but they were not getting enough competitions. It was always the same athletes who were being exposed to international competitions all the time,” explained Miss Athanase.
As for the calendar of competitions the new committee will be using the ones drafted by the old committee but will make some amendments to it.
Source: Today.sc 4-8-16