A Recap of 2025
On Friday the 19th December we held our final session of 2025. We would like to thank all of our members, parents and helpers for their continued support of the club!
2025 has been another amazing year at Cluarankwai. We taught over 300 Judo sessions across Junior, Senior and School trial sessions with some good progress being made by all our members and great results at competitions.
We hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas and wish everyone all the best for the New Year when it comes!
Thank you again for being part of our Judo family. We look forward to another year of growth, achievements and friendship in 2026!
Below is a recap of some of the year’s highlights.
January, February, March
Scottish Student Judo Championships: Michael Duff won silver at the Scottish Student Championships in St Andrews.
All Star Championships: Samuel and Nicole Elkin won Gold🥇and Zak McInally won Silver🥈at what was their first competition outside of the club!
Strathkelvin Open: 5 Juniors and 1 senior player competed collecting 1 Gold 4 Silver and 1 Bronze medal.
Nicole: Gold 🥇
Zak: Silver 🥈
Finlay: Silver🥈
Emils: Silver🥈
Samuel: Bronze 🥉
Edgars: Silver 🥈
Hibarikan Grand Prix: 5 of our Junior members took part putting in a fantastic performance at the first Grand Prix of the year.
Samuel: Gold 🥇
Evan: Silver 🥈
Joel: Silver 🥈
Nicole: Bronze 🥉
Emils: Bronze 🥉
New Website Launched: Our redesigned website went live offering members access to information about our club and its history, updates and changes to class times, coach information, grading material, events, club merch and much more!
April, May, June
First Grading of the year: In April we held our first club grading of the year with 52 members showing off the skills needed to be graded to their next belt!
Clyde Grand Prix: The second Grand Prix of the year saw more great results with 6 of our junior members and 2 senior members taking part.
Michael: Silver 🥈
Roberts: Silver 🥈
Samuel: Bronze 🥉
Nicole: Bronze 🥉
Emils: Bronze 🥉
Cody: Bronze🥉
Zak
Finlay
School Trial Sessions: This year we continued our partnership with East Ayrshire Active Schools delivering free trial sessions to over 300 local school pupils helping Judo to reach more young people and inspiring kids to take up a sport as part of an active and healthy lifestyle.
Busy Club Sessions: Throughout April, May and June our sessions were very busy regularly hitting numbers of close to 40 Juniors and 30 seniors on the mat each session.
Cherry Blossom Competition: We had 5 Junior members attend Cherry Blossom this year gaining experience in a competition setting outside the club. Everyone did fantastic!
William: Gold 🥇
Samuel: Gold 🥇
Zak: Gold 🥇
Kaci: Bronze🥉
Josh: Bronze 🥉
George Gilmour’s Promotion to 5th Dan: This is an incredible achievement that is a testament to his dedication to Judo throughout his life.
George has been a member of Cluarankwai for over 50 years after being brought to the club by his dad who was one of the founding members of the club. In his time at Cluarankwai George has been Chairman, Treasurer and senior coach as well as helping with promotional events, fundraising and the general day to day running of the club to ensure the clubs positive future.
He is an inspiration to the younger members and a great support to the coaches and committee.
George has a clear passion for Judo and exemplifies the Judo moral code always demonstrating courtesy, modesty and respect both on and off the mat.
June National Grading: Our club hosted a national grading for Judo Scotland with over 50 seniors competing from all over Scotland to collect points for their Dan Grades. We had 3 senior members competing.
Michael completed his theory and collected his final 15 points becoming the clubs newest 2nd Dan!
Conor got his first 10 points towards his 2nd Dan.
Adam collected 5 points towards his 3rd Dan.
Clyde Festival: We had 18 Junior players taking part in the Clyde Festival held by Clyde Judo Club. All of our players showed great skill and determination on the mat and collected 9 Gold Medals, 7 Silver Medals & 2 Bronze Medals.
Gold 🥇
Jayden, Kaci, Samuel, Zak, Tima, Gracie, Ivan, Lewis & Nicole
Silver 🥈
William E, Daniel, Harper, Finlay, Paige, William B & Aaron
Bronze 🥉
Alexander & Miah
July, August, September
Club sessions after summer: Our classes started to pick back up after the 2 week summer break and training for the upcoming busy couple of months of competitions was underway.
The Gathering 2025: Our coaching team attending the annual Judo Scotland Gathering at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow and had a day of coaching from Tato Grigalashvili Olympic silver medalist, 3x World Champion and 3x European Champion. This acts as part of our coaches Continuous Personal Development plan to help ensure we are constantly improving and providing sessions at the club with up to date relevant Judo experience.
New Level 2 Coaches: Our coaches Adam and Michael passed their Level 2 Coaching assessments from Judo Scotland after spending 2 weekends in Edinburgh at the Judo Scotland National Training Centre and completing the coursework and final assessment required to test their knowledge and experience in coaching.
Coach Of The Year Award: Our coach Gary Muirhead was selected as Judo Scotland’s Club Coach of the Year!
Gary gives a huge amount of his time to the club and its members coaching junior and senior sessions, travelling to competitions to support our players, carrying out maintenance on our building and serving as Vice Chairman of our committee.
This well deserved award recognises the time and effort Gary puts into supporting our members progress and helping to make our club the best it can be.🏆🥋
Strathkelvin Red, Yellow and Orange Belt Open: 4 players traveled to Cumbernauld for this competition allowing them to compete against players of a similar grade. All fought well and picked up a medal.
Paige - Gold 🥇
Zak - Silver 🥈
Aaron - Bronze 🥉
Miah - Bronze 🥉
Alba Judo Veterans: For the 2nd year in a row we hosted this event ran by David Gibson with Judoka from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and Europe. There was some fantastic Judo on display from some of our veteran members.
Edgars: Gold 🥇
Colin: Gold 🥇
Dougie: Bronze🥉
George: Bronze 🥉
Willie: Fought well missing out on a medal
October, November, December
Highland Budokan Grand Prix: 10 of our Players traveled to Inverness to compete in the final Grand Prix of the year bringing back 5 Silver medals, 3 Bronze medals and great performance from everyone!
Samuel 🥈, Zak 🥈, Nicole 🥈, Violet 🥈, Michael 🥈, Paula 🥉, Emils🥉, Robyn 🥉
Evan and Joel both fought well in tough categories but missed out on a medal this time.
Second Grading of the year: In October we held our second club grading of the year with 49 members graded!
New Level 1 Coaches: Willie and Scott became the newest coaches to join the team at Cluarankwai after completing the course held by Judo Scotland at our club and passing the written and physical assessment.
Halloween Party: We held our first ever Halloween Party at the club it was a fun filled hour of games, music and treats. Everybody's costumes were brilliant we look froward to making this a yearly event!
Bonsai 2025: 3 Junior members William, Jayden and Kaci attended this development level event all coming away with a gold medal 🥇.
Scottish Closed 2025: The highest level of competition open only to Scottish players looking to achieve the title of Scottish Champion!
Day 1: Everyone gave their all on the mat. Earning results that they should all be proud of!
Samuel: Gold 🥇
Nicole: Silver 🥈
Claire: Bronze 🥉
Zak and Michael both fought well in tough categories missing out on a medal this time.
Day 2: More great results!
Dougie: Gold 🥇
Edgars: Silver 🥈
John fought well in a higher mixed weight category but missed out on a medal.
As well as a gold medal Dougie also collected the remaining points he needed for his 2nd Dan and now only has his theory to complete.
Keizoku 2025: William Elkin was the only player from the club attending this event winning all 3 of his competitions and taking home a gold medal 🥇!
Scottish Student Sport Kyu Grade Competition: Another good day of Judo. Willie, Jamie Lee and Holly all fought well unfortunately no medals this time but lots of experience gained on the mat and some points to take away to work on during our sessions at the club.
Cluarankwai Club Competition: Our annual club competition was a great success again with 40 Junior members competing in individual and team competitions. It was a great chance for parents to see their kids show off the skills they have learnt throughout the year at the club and it was great to see the Juniors supporting each other from the mat side.
Thanks again for making 2025 a brilliant year for the club we couldn’t do it without the support from all our members!