Manx judoka Chris Horton has had a busy end to the 2024 season, with competitions in Dublin and then Las Vegas where he was representing the Great Britain team in the World Veterans’ Judo Championships.

In the Irish Open (where he won gold 12 months previously), Horton started his day fighting in the u100kg category.

Finding himself in a mixed pool with players in a younger age band, he proved age was no barrier to success as he beat his closest rivals with his trademark tani-otoshi and yoko-wakare techniques to claim the top spot on the podium.

Next up was the Open competition, where Horton was seeded away from the 2022 winner Derek Conway.

The Manx fighter, however, unfortunately lost his semi-final and the subsequent bronze medal play-off to ultimately finish fifth. However, after a total of seven tough contests across the day, he was pleased with the mat time.

After a short break, Horton was off again at the start of November to Las Vegas.

Having made the quarter-finals in 2021 in Lisbon, and the last-16 in Abu Dhabi last year, he was under no illusions of the quality of athletes, with many categories showcasing former senior internationals and even Olympians.

The first-round contest was against Intigam Alakbarov (Azerbaijan), who won the competition in 2022, and was the player who eliminated the man from Peel in Portugal.

Horton started brightly, forcing Alakbarov into an early penalty for not gripping, but the former champion’s class showed shortly after when he launched into an attack which took Horton to the ground.

Despite turning out of the initial hold-down, Alakbarov was able to apply an armlock technique, which forced Horton to submit the contest.

Horton had a long wait to see if he would compete in the repechage contest to ultimately play-off for bronze.

Thankfully he did, and German Sascha Heu was next up. Heu had a height and reach advantage, and Horton struggled to match his gripping strategy in the early exchanges.

A failed tomoe-nage technique from the German saw both athletes require medical treatment for head injuries, but once they returned, neither showed any ill-effects and continued with their same intensity.

Heu was able to force Horton to the floor with a waza-ari score and the subsequent hold down was strong enough to last the regulation 10 seconds for the full ippon score.

Reflecting on the event, and 2024 as a whole, Horton said: ‘This year has been quite tough to reach the personal standards I set myself to compete at this level.

‘However, I have either matched or bettered all my domestic results compared to 2023, and added silver from the Commonwealth Championships in Malta and bronze from the European Veterans Cup in Hamburg to those achievements.

‘Thanks to everyone for their support, it really does mean a lot.’

Anyone interested in taking up judo should contact Chris on 426593, or follow Isle of Man Judo on Facebook.