Stellar Judo was created on the 14th of February 2015 by Stellar Winery. At that time judo was an unknown sport for the children on the farm. Stellar was fortunate enough to have an employee, Owen Palm, working at Stellar who had experience with judo training.

On the 28th February 2015, 13 of our athletes when to their first ever judo competition in Saldanha. The group proudly came home with 9 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze medals hung around their neck. Since then the group has just gone from strength to strength and we realised that our team had a natural talent.

In June 2016, 9 of our athletes made their way into Western Cape team who went on to Johannesburg to take part in the South African championships. It was an amazing experience for Stellar’s students who came back with two medals. Coach Owen Palm received a gold and Duran Faroa received a bronze. Tersie Beukes fought against a black belt from Kenya, who only managed to get him onto the mat five seconds before the five minutes was up. This is impressive as Tersie has not graduated to yellow belt yet.

As chairman of Stellar Judo Gert Loubser is very proud to be part of the winning team. At the recent West Coast Sport Awards in Saldanha, Steller’s Judo club was the only club to walk away with 6 awards.

Gert, Owen and two board members, Fransiena Douge and Terisa Beukes attended a judo meeting on 27 March 2017 in Vredenburg to represent Stellar Judo. At the meeting Owen was chosen as the chairman of the West Coast Judo Federation. The West Coast is the district that the Stellar club is affiliated with.

Stellar now has 13 students and has recently received practice mats from the Western Cape Federation. The registration money of these 13 athletes has been paid by the JSA Federation. We are very thankful for their kindness and generosity.