Ashley McKenzie grins broadly as he tells how a fight over a Pokemon card turned him from a problematic youngster in trouble with the law to one of Britain’s best hopes for a judo medal at the Olympics.
Thrown out of school, his life was changed when he was 11 by a tussle on a street near his home in west London which broke out when another boy tried to make off with his prized Pokemon charizard card.
“This charizard was the best card. It was my life back then,” he recalled at the British judo team’s training base in Dartford, east of London. “I’ve gone to grab his shirt and next thing I knew I was over his shoulder. I was a scrapper back in the day, so I knew this wasn’t right. I went for him again and as I’ve gone for him he’s thrown me again. I was thinking: ‘No way, what’s going on? How’s he throwing me? He’s hurting me.’”
Baffled, he went home and looked on the Internet where he discovered he had been overcome by a judo move. Keen to learn more, he went along to a local club and found his erstwhile attacker there, along with his Pokemon card.
“We spoke, we’re friends, I started judo. Obviously, I got my Pokemon card back,” he added with a laugh.
McKenzie, now a charming 23-year-old, is very open about his past troubles and proud of how he turned his life around.
He was regularly excluded from school and spent time in a young-offenders institution, but having got into judo, his talent was spotted and success in junior competitions followed.
“I started winning more and more, and I thought my mum’s happy, and my brother and my dad’s happy for me winning these, and when I’m in school I’m always in trouble,” he said. “It was like a balance, where I was doing something positive. So I kind of focused all my energy on judo. From there my life kind of shot up.”
It was not all plain sailing, as his penchant for trouble has seen him earn a number of bans from the sport, but the medals kept coming and he knuckled down when he realized he could get to the Olympics.
“It sunk in my head, I could actually do this. This actually could be my dream, my dream could come true, to be someone in the world,” he said.
He is desperate to win a medal in London in front of his friends and family, but knows it will not be easy, especially with Uzbekistan’s Rishod Sobirov, a huge favorite, in his under-60kg category.
“I’ve come from so low to so high in my life. I’ve done what I had to do and this is the end spot,” he said. “I’ve completed the one big barrier that’s getting out of all the trouble, trying to go to the Games. Now the next step is let’s try and get a medal.”
If he does not succeed this time, then he is even more determined to prove himself at the Olympics in Brazil in 2016.
“At Rio, I’ll be looking for gold, and that is it. I want a medal, I want to get a gold so bad it’s unbelievable,” he said.
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
INTER AWAIT: Superb saves by PSG ’keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma inspired the victory, as Arsenal were punished for misses, including one by Bukayo Saka Arsenal on Wednesday fell short on the big stage again as their painful UEFA Champions League semi-final exit against Paris Saint-Germain left Mikel Arteta to rue his club’s failure to provide him with enough attacking options. Arteta’s side were unable to reach the Champions League final for the first time in 19 years as PSG clinched a tense 2-1 win at Parc des Princes. Trailing 1-0 from last week’s first leg in London, the Gunners made a blistering start to the second leg, but could not convert their chances as Gianluigi Donnarumma’s superb saves inspired PSG’s 3-1 aggregate victory. Arsenal were punished for
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
RSS