Judo Champion’s Success!

Murray is a blind judo player who participates in training camps and competitions across the UK and Europe. Murray continually demonstrates his talents and works with the mainstream Scottish talent development squad and the GB para-potential squad. Trefoil was delighted to support Murray with a £2,500 personal development grant to enable him to develop his skills and opportunities.

Participating in mainstream events allows Murray to train and compete with the best judo players in the country; while participating in VI events allows him to mix with a VI peer group. Both are really important to Murray as he loves testing himself against the best athletes. He takes this approach into his VI events too and sets his bar just as high for these events. His vision is not a barrier to him achieving his best. Murray’s family has found the VI events to be really helpful to get him to integrate with the VI community.

Murray and his coach at training.

As Murray increases his medal tally the number of events he is invited to has also increased. Trefoil’s funding went towards Murray’s attendance at these events, which has produced promising results with Murray gaining confidence and medals including:

-            Gold in the Juniors at the German VI Open

-            Silver in the Seniors at the Liverpool Open (Murray’s first mainstream senior event)

-            Silver in the Seniors at the German VI Open (beating a Paralympian in the process!)

-            Silver at the Scottish VI Open

Murray’s judo is going from strength to strength with him being invited to take part in the GB under-23 training camps and he is hoping to get to the next Paralympics.

Trefoil is delighted with Murray’s progress and looks forward to cheering him on as he represents the country in judo for years to come!