Judoka Freddie Dugdale prepared for life after Olympic gold - 'I want to be able to teach other people'
BySportsbeat
Updated 14/04/2023 at 21:34 GMT
Freddie Dugdale already has a plan set out should he one day claim an Olympic gold medal. "Once I've won the Olympics, I want to pass my knowledge onto everyone else - I don't want to just win the Olympics and stop there. I want to be able to teach other people, do seminars, go to different countries and teach martial arts and judo," the teenager said.
General image of Tbilisi Grand Slam 2023 at New Sports Palace on March 26, 2023 in Tbilisi, Georgia
Image credit: Getty Images
Kingswood judoka Freddie Dugdale is already planning for life after Olympic gold.
The 16-year-old was first introduced to the sport around the age of five, with his parents told it would be a good way for him to improve his focus and concentration after being diagnosed with ADHD.
Dugdale struggled at first, but one-to-one coaching sessions helped hone his skill and confidence and develop him into one of Britain's best young judokas.
And though an Olympic debut may be a few years off yet, there's no doubting Dugdale's confidence about his future.
"I want to go to the Olympics and I want to win the Olympics," said Dugdale, who is being supported by Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) through SportsAid this year.
"Once I've won the Olympics, I want to pass my knowledge onto everyone else - I don't want to just win the Olympics and stop there. I want to be able to teach other people, do seminars, go to different countries and teach martial arts and judo.
"I've got quite a defined style of judo and I think when I was doing my competitions that's what got me noticed quite a lot. If I can teach things about what I like to do to other people and pass my knowledge on once I've done it - which I'm sure I will and inspire to do - it would be very nice."
Dugdale was announced as part of RBC's 'Class of 2023' at a welcome reception in London last week. He is one of 50 athletes, across 34 sporting disciplines, to have received an award contributing towards costs such as travel, accommodation and equipment.
Dugdale has recently moved up in weight class, and won silver in his first international competition in that new weight division.
And it is not hard to see where his confidence stems from, with the teenager having dominated the junior domestic scene in recent years.
He added: "I started competing on a county level, and then slowly started building my way up. Eventually I started getting golds all over in Surrey and from there Covid came, so I didn't compete for about two years.
"After that there weren't many competitions, there were only low-level or high-level ones, so I couldn't really compete for about half a year.
"A few regional ones started coming back in slowly - judo's only a small governing body, it wasn't coming back straight away like football was. I started doing regional competitions and started winning them, and then I started doing national events, and built my way up to winning those.
"For a little period of time I didn't have a coach, but I was still doing these competitions and I won a really big one, the English Closed. I ended up winning it on my own - I had five fights and won them all.
"From there, I started doing other GB competitions, travelling around the UK and I've been winning them."
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