Hi Everyone,

The weigh in was Thursday night. I weighed in at 94.2kg. I had to be Under 95kg. I then made it back in time for the diner buffet where I went nuts and ate a few platefuls of food.

The competition started on Friday at 6pm with the black belts starting about 10pm. I competed in my weight division and the absolute division. I lost my first match in both divisions to the guy who ended up making the final and winning silver in the respective divisions. Both of my opponents were World Champions. It was a tough draw. I lost both matches by points. I was generally happy with how I did but I still made some mistakes.

The other Aussies lost their first matches too. All the divisions were stacked with World and Pan American Champions. The blue belt on the team lost his first match in the open division but won his weight division in the blue belt tournament. The Aussie team consisted of Gustavo Pinto (Under 65kg), Talgat Ilyasov (Under 75kg), Paulo Guimaraes (Under 85kg), Mick Wilson (Over 95kg), Stefan Krieg (Blue Belt) and myself.

Saturday was the finals day where they had the semi finals and finals. Most of the black belt matches were good to watch.

We all then had a day off on Sunday where I did 2 half day tours. The first tour was a tour around Abu Dhabi. The second tour was a desert tour. I will post photos of the tours and of my matches up on Facebook soon.

Thanks for all the messages of support.

Anthony Perosh