WOOD Gabriella

General
BASED IN SCOTLAND
In 2018 she travelled to Scotland to visit family after spending six months training at the International Judo Federation [IJF] Olympic Training Centre in Hungary. She had some sessions at Judo Scotland's National Training Centre in Ratho, and ended up working with coach Lee Calder. "I had just finished a three-month judo camp in Hungary and my travel agent had only booked me a ticket to London, rather than all the way home. So I went to London and then on to see my brothers in Scotland. While I was there I did a couple of judo sessions in Ratho and just stuck around. It wasn't my plan at all to stay. I was supposed to be going back home. I met Lee a few months later and working with him has really helped bring about a massive improvement in my judo. He's helped me focus more on my strategy and techniques. And he's showing where I'm going wrong, fixing those errors, and emphasising what I'm doing right. So his coaching has really made a big difference for me." (newsday.co.tt, 23 Jun 2021; heraldscotland.com, 09 Feb 2020; judoscotland.com, 14 Jan 2020; ijf.org, 25 Oct 2019; alloaadvertiser.com, 01 Oct 2019)

FURTHER EDUCATION
In 2017 she stopped studying to focus on the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In 2021 she started a bachelor's degree in sport studies at the University of Stirling in Scotland. "I have put everything on hold for this. I eventually got a partial sport scholarship for the University of Stirling for my bachelor's in sport studies. Eventually, it all just worked out. I took the last four years [speaking in 2021] away from school to focus on judo and now I'm going back to school." (newsday.co.tt, 23 Jun 2021; heraldscotland.com, 09 Feb 2020)

EYES ON TOKYO
She hopes to raise the profile of judo in Trinidad and Tobago after qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. "Judo is not very popular in Trinidad and Tobago at all. There are probably a maximum of 200 people who do it in the whole country. Maybe not even that many. The government back home tends to focus on cricket, swimming, football, and athletics. Those are the main sports. There isn't much attention for judo or other martial arts. When I started out doing judo nobody really understood what it was. People kept asking me, 'What is this sport?' They didn't know what it was about so I had to keep explaining it. My goal is to qualify for the Olympics and hopefully along that path it will help raise the profile of the sport back home." (heraldscotland.com, 09 Feb 2020)