National Lottery players raise more than £30million a week for good causes including vital funding into sport – from grassroots to elite. I can buckle down and concentrate on Paris, not have any other distractions and just have full focus for the Games.” It was so hard and I knew I was challenging myself doing both, it wasn’t the easy option, but I thought what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
This is just the start.”Īnd having recently graduated from the University of Nottingham, Platten is now relishing the chance to focus full-time on judo as she chases a place at the Paris 2024 Olympics. “I’m a second-year senior so it’s a tough sport, it’s hard out here but this has only given me a massive confidence boost and it’s just told me that I can do this. I got chills before going on and I thought, ‘this is mine’, no one can take this away from me. “I just told myself to use that crowd, use it as fuel to fire me and it genuinely did. “I know that my dad spoke to me about it before and said you need to prepare for that crowd because it’s going to be loud and you don’t want to let it fluster you,” she said. She also welcomed the vocal backing she received from the crowd at the Coventry Arena, using the atmosphere to her advantage rather than shrinking under the pressure. We wouldn’t have that, and I wouldn’t be able to do what I do, without worrying about everything else, without that.” “It’s where the best people can come and we can really push ourselves. “It’s incredible and I just have to thank National Lottery and everyone who plays the Lottery because it’s allowed us to train in the National Training Centre,” she said. That’s some of the challenges that come with it but it’s also one of the amazing things about this sport.įrom St Albans originally, Platten trains at the British Judo Centre in Walsall - just outside Birmingham - and she said the support she has received has been key to her success. “You have a bit of a game plan but it’s so unpredictable in this sport. In judo, you can’t predict anything that’s going to happen. “I was like, ‘you know what, don’t over think it, just get your grip, come in and throw her’, so I’m really happy. I was so hyped up for it as we had such a long gap between the preliminaries. I’ve just come off the mat, it was so quick,” she said. The 21-year-old from Hertfordshire saw her dreams of gold in the -48kg category dashed at Birmingham 2022 after losing her last four contest to South Africa’s Michaela Whitebooi.īut she recovered from that disappointment in style against Malawian Harriet Bonface, executing an Ippon - the highest score a fighter can achieve in the sport - to secure bronze. From despair to joy in a heartbeat, judoka Amy Platten experienced the full spectrum of emotions as she shook off a semi-final defeat to claim Commonwealth Games bronze.
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