\u201cComing from such a small town, there\u2019s so much love, and I honestly couldn\u2019t be more prouder to represent Gisborne on the world stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gisborne Airport had a busy Monday afternoon with friends and family eagerly awaiting the arrival of Commonwealth games judoka gold medalist Sydnee Andrews. Photo\/ Leonie Sheehan.<\/p>\n
Andrews is back in Gisborne for a week visiting schools and the judo club and catching up with friends and family.<\/p>\n
She will return to Camberley Judo Club in London to prepare for her next competition in mid-September \u2013 the Hungary Grand Slam in Budapest.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully I do keep the winning streak going, but that\u2019s obviously short-term. Long-term, I want to medal at the LA Olympics,\u201d said Andrews, who also won bronze at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna do it, then come back home to another awesome welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews said she had struggled being based so far away, unable to be there for her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost my oma (Dutch for grandmother) at the end of February and one wish she told me was to not come back … to continue training and to continue [chasing] my dream. I know she was there on the mat with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among those at the airport was her first judo coach Jason King, who has known her since she started in the Gisborne club\u2019s peewee classes at age 5.<\/p>\n
King said he was impressed with how she fought at the Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a coach you\u2019re sort of like, you know, could have done a bit better than that, but this time I watched the three fights and she wasn\u2019t going home without the gold medal.\u201d<\/p>\n
King said he started to see potential in Andrews when she was about 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe little bit of fight came out of her in the tournament competition fighting … so we started to push her a little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
She was about 16 when she went to Japan to compete and beat a Japanese judoka in the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started going … this is your sport girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recalled sitting Andrews down to talk about her judo future.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe says, \u2018oh I\u2019ll probably do judo for another few years and then I\u2019m going to quit and I want to go dancing\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cI looked her straight in the eye, and went, \u2018yeah, nah, that\u2019s not the answer I wanted\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
King said Andrews was a great role model for the kids. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went to judo last week and they go, \u2018did you see Sydnee? She won the Commonwealth Games\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo I go, \u2018yeah, I\u2019m still pretty tired from staying up all night watching it live, mate\u2019 … there were a few tears in my lounge that night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews\u2019 aunties Deb Murphy and Tiff Jefferies were also there to welcome her home.<\/p>\n
Murphy recalled Andrews going to her house when she was about 10 and saying, \u201cI\u2019m going to get the Olympic gold\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, right Sydnee,\u201d Murphy replied at the time. \u201cBut now I reckon she\u2019s gonna get it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I said, \u2018If you get a gold, you can flip me.\u2019 So she might still do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jefferies said Andrews had always been hard-working.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just love seeing what an articulate professional she has blossomed into. She is fiercely determined, which I love about her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cComing from such a small town, there\u2019s so much love, and I honestly couldn\u2019t be more prouder to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,2681,62032,11783,51038,6489,6276,12506,4241,1345,278556,278554,94586,111,139,69,213,278555,73172,32259,1845],"class_list":["post-565924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-airport","tag-andrews","tag-brought","tag-commonwealth","tag-games","tag-gets","tag-gisborne","tag-gold","tag-home","tag-judoka","tag-medalist","tag-medallist","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports","tag-sydnee","tag-tears","tag-warm","tag-welcome"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}