Julian Clapp annouces his retirement after his successes at the World Championships 2026.
James Pope reports:
UK Racketlon has learned that one of our most decorated senior players, Julian Clapp, has retired from playing Racketlon after the 2026 World Championships. He bows out on the back of winning the O70s Singles title, achieving what so very few do, to retire at the very top.
Where it all began…
Julian’s adventure in Racketlon started by happenstance, at a chance encounter at a badminton AGM where someone suggested he should play a multi-racket sport – the name of which he couldn’t remember. This was soon backed up when he bumped into a “squash guy” he hadn’t seen for 3 years and hasn’t seen since, who confirmed this unknown named sport existed.
Julian dug into the idea and some internet searching took him to Racketlon. He entered the 2014 Richard Lawrence Open and never looked back…. No, not really, he had a somewhat torrid time. The rules seemed complicated and after his 35 year old TT bat had left him on the wrong end of a 21-1 defeat (the 1 was a net cord, but they do all count) Julian did consider feigning an injury and heading home, giving Malcolm Burr a walkover. He wouldn’t have been the first, and he wouldn’t have been the last to feel like that. However he persevered. He won the badminton, lost the squash and was defending 7 in the tennis. He fought, ran everything down and won 21-3. He lost his next match to Bruce Shepherd before a final win over Julian Kashdan-Brown took him to third place. Exhausted but over the moon, the bug was born.
The progression…
Julian kept ticking over, and in 2015 won a first title the Men’s D at the South Eastern Open, and just a few weeks later it was the Men’s C at the Staffordshire Open – the progress was coming. He also started to gather international experience at the immensely popular (and much missed) King of Rackets event in Belgium. Local hero Hans van Daele encouraged him to think big, and so Julian did. He joined his first GB O55s squad in 2015 for the European Championships in Prague. The juniors and seniors were parked off site, but Julian, in what he describes as “A team of four better players and me”, said it was fine. The O55s won gold and with that, Julian was a team European Champion. International seniors was where Julian began to really focus, becoming the O60s champion at the Super World Tour Racket Masters event in 2016, and at the 2017 European Championships, with partner Graham King from Switzerland, they were crowned the Men’s O60s doubles champions.
The World Championships…
Julian was beginning to progress nicely and the move up an age group in 2019 led to a fresh drive to push on. Alas, as he started to get into good nick, Covid came and shut it all down. Julian took the challenge in his stride and at the 2021 World Championships he found himself in the +65 singles final. He faced Stefan Blomgren. Julian wished to get to tennis, and his 5 point lead after squash achieved that aim. He took it deep, he asked questions that his opponent wasn’t answering very well. Julian got the score to 17-17 and that was enough – his first singles World Title! It wasn’t his last. He defended that singles title the next season, plus two more O65s Doubles titles with Graham King in 2022 and 2023. There wasn’t much left to win, but Julian sealed his first British National Title in the O65s singles in 2024, before completing the set of O65s titles with the 2025 O65s World Teams title.
Making history in 2026…
As well as that O70s singles world title Julian made two lots of history in Rotterdam in 2026. Firstly, he was part of the GB team who won the first O70s World Team title before being part of the historic GB O65s Team Podium lockout, as GB O65s 1s won that final, defended their title and finishing in the greatest possible way. As Julian put it, he realised in the shower afterwards that he was done.
Julian’s closing thoughts…
“It’s been such fun, the players, the matches, the ups and the downs, what a community. At 50 most players are winding down, Racketlon gave me new goals and even at 70 I still wanted to get better. If you had said to me in Oxford, as I considered feigning the injury and going home that I would win 10 World and European titles, I would have suggested you were not feeling very well. It really shows you should persevere in life. However now, there are other goals to chase,”
Congratulations to Julian on a fantastic Racketlon career, and a stunning set of achievements. Good luck in chasing these new goals and if they are competitive, then your future opponents had better watch out!
