Camberley Judo Club Coaches
Mark Earle – 6th Dan
Head Coach
Mark started Judo when he was eleven years old. He represented Great Britain on many occasions and has won many senior international medals which among them include gold in the senior Dutch Open two gold’s in the Belgium Open and four A tournament Medals.
He gained his black belt in 1979, at the age of sixteen. In January 2001 he was awarded his sixth Dan (red and white belt).
Mark built Camberley Judo Club in 1988. In 1991 he started a Full time training group and turned one of the old buildings on the site into an accommodation building. In 1997 this building was replaced for a newer, larger accommodation building which became home to so many of Great Britain’s elite fighters.
He became a qualified Coach in 1980 at the age of eighteen and went on to become Junior National Coach in 1990 and a BJA examiner in the same year. In 1992 he became senior National coach and became Olympic Coach in 1996 and 2000. Since 2000 Mark has worked as a support coach for the British Team on a regular basis attending the World Championships in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007 and the European Championships throughout the same period. In 2008 Mark was named as one of the judo coaches for the Beijing Olympic Games. This honour meant Mark has been Olympic coach at three Olympic Games!
Not only has Mark been involved with some of the British Teams successes as a National Coach but also as a personal Coach to players such as Karina Bryant and John Buchanan.
Today Mark continues to run the day to day operations of the club and oversees and supports Luke in his role as Full time coach.
Luke Preston-3rd Dan
Senior Coach
Luke started Judo when he was six years old. Since then he has represented both Wales and Great Britain on numerous occasions.
Luke began full time training at Camberley Judo Club in 1997 after successfully completing his degree course in social psychology.
He has an impressive competition record winning the senior British Championships at under 81kg three times. Amongst his eleven senior B Tournament results he won the Canadian Open twice and won silver in the British Open. Luke also took medals in A tournaments, won Commonwealth Games bronze, won silver in the European Team Championships and placed 7th in the Senior European Championships in 2001. He was the Olympic reserve at 81kgs for the Sydney Games 2000.
Luke retired from international competition in 2005 and became a qualified coach so that he could work as an elite coach for Camberley Judo Club. He is a qualified BJA club coach and also obtained the EJU level 4 coaching award. Luke posseses a foundation degree in sport performance and runs the day to day training programmes for the elite group.
He also works as a support Coach for the Great Britain Development Squad in the build up to the 2012 Olympic Games. This has involved coaching at the Junior World Championships 2006, 2008 and Junior/Under 23 European Championships 2006, 2007 , 2008 and 2009.
