Glasgow 2014 champion Renicks back on the mat after long lay-off
KIMBERLEY Renicks will get to grips with nine months of frustration when she competes in the Scottish Judo Open at the Emirates Arena today.
The 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist from Lanarkshire, along with her sister Louise – who is now her personal coach – had hoped to compete for Great Britain at the Rio Olympics until one throw at a Grand Prix event in Turkey put her career on hold.
In the act of attempting to extricate herself from her opponent’s gambit, the 28-year-old sustained a shoulder injury severe enough that she was unable to lift her arm the next day as she flew back home to Scotland. A specialist insisted a double operation was required to remedy the problem and that was the end of her hopes of competing in Brazil, where a fellow Scot Sally Conway brought home a famous bronze medal in the -70kg class.
With the help of her sister – who retired from competition to lessen the funding burden on a judoka who receives no institute support and must self-fund for European Opens and Grand Prix events – Kimberley has painstakingly built up the strength in her shoulder and today will be her first time returning to the mat.
There is little in the way of pressure on her in an event that will see her compete at the -52kg as compared to her usual -48kg group, but it will be cranked up soon enough. The Scottish Open is the first leg of the newly rebranded Team Scotland series, a combination of national championships across a variety of Commonwealth Sports. But, with judo not on the roster of sports for the Gold Coast in 2018, she knows she must climb about 25 places in the rankings in the next two years to convince everyone that making the Great Britain team for the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020 is possible. Those games will be a celebration of martial arts and Kimberley’s next assignment, back at her usual fighting weight, after today comes in Sofia, Bulgaria, at the start of February, then fighting again in Austria two weeks later.
“I’m looking forward to get back to fighting,” said Kimberley. “It’s going to be good to get the cobwebs off but I’m fighting 52kg tomorrow, which is the weight above where I usually fight. All my bigger competitions are from the start of February and I will be back fighting at 48kg.”
As frustrating as the period has been, it hasn’t all been hard graft. Louise and Kimberley are just back from a trip to New Zealand that saw them hook up with a local Auckland judo club and the Kiwi National team. “I said this is going to be your last holiday for two years, so just enjoy it,” said Louise. “Now we have to knuckle down. I don’t think she will be emotional. I just think she will be glad to be back in the old routine.
“There have been some hard parts,” conceded Louise. “Now, touch wood, everything is in the right place but we are going forward with her strength programme in a completely different way than before.”