ALONG with the status of world champion comes the fact that you become a marked man or, in Nicola Fairbrother's case, a marked woman. The 23-year-old lightweight came here to defend the European title she won in Athens last year and, while she reached tomorrow's semi- finals, she had to draw on her mental and tactical reserves.

THE British squad had one of its most successful days in recent years at the European Championships in Gdansk, Poland, yesterday - the first of two days of preliminaries - when five of the seven competitors secured places in tomorrow's semi-finals, writes Philip Nicksan.

'Everyone in the City is a wimp,' roared a man wearing bright red trousers and a yellow baseball cap into a crackly microphone. The forlorn-looking businessman sitting on a bench nearby stopped eating his sandwich for a moment and stared. Things have not been going too well for MC Richard Kelly this week. You'd have thought that the sight of two giant inflatable sumo wrestlers lying on the grass in Exchange Square would have caused something of a stir. But, what with the wind and the rain, Kelly has persuaded only a handful of the passing business community to indulge in a quick lunchtime bout. Hordes turned up last year, apparently, but on Tuesday the keenest interest came from a stray Japanese tourist, and he only wanted a photo.

WITHOUT a world championships or Olympics this year, the European Championships, which begin here today, have attracted the strongest possible entry, putting pressure on Britain's medal hopes and especially on the world lightweight champion, Nicola Fairbrother, who is out to retain the European title she won in Athens last year, writes Philip Nicksan from Gdansk, Poland.

KARATE is a serious discipline. At the 29th European Championships held over the weekend at the National Indoor Arena here, more than 400 competitors from 34 countries helped distance the ancient sport from the excessives of kung fu and the spurious claims of martial artists.

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS (Birmingham): Men 60kg: 1 H Yagli (Turk). 65kg: 1 M Braun. 70kg: 1 R Anselmo (Fr). 75kg: 1 W Otto (Eng). 80kg: 1 G Cherdieu (Fr). 80kg+: 1 O Olivares (Sp). Kata Ind: 1 M Milon (Fr). Open: 1 C Della Roca (It). Team Kumite: 1 Italy. Team Kata: 1 France. Women 53kg: 1 S Laine (Fin). 60kg: 1 C Bux (It). 60kg+: 1 S Jean-Pierre (Fr). Kata Ind: 1 C Colajacomo (It). Open: 1 C Hernandez (Sp). Team Kumite: 1 France. Team Kata: 1 Spain.

THE fighting styles of Britain's two light-heavyweights, Olympic silver medallist Ray Stevens and world silver medallist Kate Howey may be totally different, but the end result at the British Open in Birmingham on Saturday was the same: gold medals.

BRITAIN'S two leading women fighters return to international competition in the British Open at the National Indoor Arena today, writes Philip Nicksan.

RAY STEVENS, Britain's silver medallist in the 1992 Olympics, returns to top international competition at the British Open on Saturday for the first time since Barcelona. A little more than 10 years ago, when Stevens was still a teenager, we were opposed in the Scottish Open. I was not unduly worried - I had sparred many times with him at my club and never found him a handful particularly. 'A nifty footsweep, as usual,' I thought, and I looked ahead to the next round. We bowed and came to grips. Ten seconds later, I was on my back and that was that.

JUST because judo was given to the world by the Japanese does not make them the best at it, just as the British have found in other sports. But the fact is that although there were around 80 countries at the World Championships in Canada in October, four of the eight men's gold medals went to Japan and they remain the country to beat. This is despite training methods that are roundly regarded as outmoded and even counter-productive. They force their competitors to endure three- hour sparring sessions and mind- numbing repetitious practice. Yet it can also be admitted that often not only do they win, but that they win well, with spectacular classical technique.

'JUDO is a very fragile plant,' Geof Gleeson asserted in his book, All About Judo, 'it has had something of a hypochondriacal existence.' Whether this explains why more than 40 senior competitors withdrew from this year's British Closed Championships complaining of flu is open to conjecture. As an acknowledgement of the march of youth, the succession of sick notes may well have been more than mere coincidence.

SLOPPY accounting, not criminal dishonesty, was behind a batch of altered receipts which led to the departure of Roy Inman, the former manager of Britain's successful women's judo squad, an industrial tribunal decided yesterday.

THE Olympic silver medallist, Nicola Fairbrother, had to abandon her favourite throw in order to win the lightweight title at the World Championships here on Saturday night.

KATE HOWEY, at light-heavyweight, brought Britain a superb start in the World Championships yesterday, winning a silver medal and coming within six seconds of taking the gold, writes Philip Nicksan from Hamilton, Canada.