Winston Gordon, 40, (pictured) who has competed for Team GB in three Olympic games was enjoying a beer with eight friends when he was caught up in the crossfire
A British judo star was hit in the foot by a ricocheting bullet as police gunned down one of the five terrorists in a Spanish seaside town early today.
Winston Gordon, 40, who has competed for Team GB in three Olympic games was enjoying a late night beer with eight friends when he was caught up in the crossfire.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, he told how Spanish police shot the terrorist in front of him outside the bar in Cambrils near Barcelona.
Mr Gordon said a piece of shrapnel, apparently from one of the bullets, sliced through the skin on his left foot, leaving blood pouring from a wound.
Seconds later the terrorist, who was wearing a fake suicide belt over his orange shirt, was lying dead on the ground.
The terrorist was one of five men who were in an Audi A3 which ploughed into people walking on the seafront in Cambrils at around 1am.
Four of the gang who were wielding knives were shot by a single policeman at the scene while the fifth man ran around 200 metres up the road.
Mr Gordon who was in Cambrils to help out at an international judo camp, said: ‘I was with six or seven friends when two girls ran in looking really scared.
‘A young boy was there, so I stood up and grabbed him and said: “What is wrong?”
‘He just replied: “Look over there.”
‘Then I saw this guy yelling: “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar”. I turned round straight away and said: “Get away boys, go, go, go.”
Fitzroy Davies, who is from Wolverhampton but is in Spain for a judo camp, filmed the moment a suspect was gunned down by police. It is unclear if the man in the orange shirt was one of the terrorists but he is seen walking on the other side of a fence before approaching the officers
Four of the terrorists were shot outside the Club Nautic Cambrils restaurant as around 60 diners were on its terrace
‘He looked like a normal guy with dark hair from a distance, but when I saw him closer he had stuff taped to his body. There were objects on his chest. The first thing I thought was that he was a terrorist with a suicide belt.’
Mr Gordon said he continued calling out to his friend Fitzroy Davies who was busy filming the scene on his mobile phone.
‘This guy was just standing there and moving up and down. The police came along very quickly. It might have been a few seconds. We were only a few yards away.
‘The cops pulled up in front of him and told him to stand still. But he was still moving and they fired some shots. To me, it looked like they fired shots in the air to get his attention and frighten him.
‘A policeman then ran behind the car to get a better position and the guy started moving up and down again. Then there were more shots fired.
‘He went down, but then he got up and moved back round the police car. The police told him: “Stop, Stop” and they fired again.
‘At the time the second shots were fired, something ricocheted and hit my leg. I felt it straight away. It was like something just flew past my leg and cut me. It was just like I had been slashed.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Winston Gordon (pictured at the English Open Judo Championships on March 10, 2013) told how Spanish police shot the terrorist in front of him outside the bar in Cambrils near Barcelona
‘I realised what had happened and shouted to the guys, “I have been hit on my foot.”
‘I think the bullet or a bit of it had come off the pavement or the road because I was not in the line of fire when the cops shot him.
‘My foot was bleeding. It came as a shock and I did not have time to think.’
Mr Gordon from Wandsworth, south London, who currently teaches judo in Munich, admitted he had ‘a lucky escape’.
He said: ‘When I think about it now, I was concentrating on looking at the guy while Fitz was standing there filming.
‘There could have been two or three of them come up behind us and taken us by surprise.’
Mr Gordon said he ‘did not bother’ to tell police at the scene that he had been hit and instead walked around half a mile to the town’s hospital.
But he decided not to go in and returned to his apartment because he did not think his wound was serious and he thought staff had more badly injured people to deal with.
When he got up in the morning he went back to the hospital on the advice of his friends and asked for medics to look at the wound in case it was infected.
Mr Gordon said he ‘did not bother’ to tell police at the scene that he had been hit and instead walked around half a mile to the town’s hospital
He said: ‘It was just a small gash. It had dried up and they dressed it. I didn’t need stitches or anything like that. ‘I have got my foot taped up now and I will continue doing the judo camp here.’
Mr Gordon’s friend Fitzroy Davies, 54, who is also at the judo camp, said: ‘We were only about 15 metres away when the terrorist got shot.
‘We were at the bar when four girls came running in and there were people running on the street.
‘Winston got out of the chair to see what was going on. There were eight of us and he said, “Run”.
‘The police came within about 30 seconds. The police got out of the car and a couple of shots were fired, then a few more and he fell to the ground.’
Mr Davies who coaches with the Hardy Spicer judo club in Wolverhampton, added: ‘I am sure at least six of the bullets hit him when he first went down because he fell and he was lying on the ground.
‘But he sat up and got up again and jumped over a small fence. He was ranting and laughing and smiling as he went towards the police.
‘Then they shot him again and he didn’t get up. I think there were eight to ten shots at the beginning.
‘I think he wasn’t right. He must have been on something. He was in an orange top and it looked like he had coca cola cans on his chest and he had something in his hand. When you saw him up close, it didn’t look like a real suicide belt.
‘It had the desired effect because it frightened everybody, but I though that if it was real, then he would have detonated it like the terrorists in Paris, because he was in a no win situation.
‘Winston was hit as he was standing there shouting at me to move. Luckily, it was only a small wound.’
Four of the terrorists were shot outside the Club Nautic Cambrils restaurant as around 60 diners were on its terrace. Restaurant owner Ruben Campos said: ‘I saw the car crash and overturn in front of the club. Five terrorists came out with knives and one of them had a hatchet.
‘Then three seconds later a police car came up. The terrorists went to attack the police and I heard a “boom, boom, boom” as four of them were shot dead. There were a lot of bangs and they were killed in a few seconds.
‘I realised they were terrorists because the car was driving so fast away from police. The engine was screeching as it was going so fast.
‘There were three policemen in the car, but only one did the shooting. He had a medium size automatic gun.
‘I head that the one terrorist who ran away slashed a woman with a knife. Then the police shot him as well. It was a crazy night.
‘Everyone came in the bar and we closed the doors. We stayed here for two hours and the police let out six people at a time. There were Russian, Spanish and French customers.
‘All the terrorists were wearing suicide belts. At the time, I didn’t know if they were real, but the police later said they were fakes.’
British judo black belt Henry Wakes, 18, from Blackburn, Lancashire, who is also at the judo camp in Cambrils said he was at a pizza restaurant on Thursday night when he saw TV reports about the terror attack in Barcelona.
He telephoned his parents, Craig and Sharon Wakes, to say he was safe, little realising that he was going to narrowly miss being caught up in another attack.
Henry who is Britain’s number one judo competitor for his weight and age, said: ‘I told my mum we were safe and that nothing was going to happen in such a nice little place as this. She just told me to keep my eyes open and be careful.’
Then around two hours later Henry went out for walk with his judo friends Harvey Tero, 17, and his brother Oliver Tero, 14, from Manchester who are also at the camp.
He said: ‘We actually walked past the spot where the car crashed and the terrorists were shot just ten minutes before it happened.
‘We only found out later what had gone on. I was asleep at about 7.30am when my dad rang to ask if I was OK. Our apartment is only about 200metres away from it all.’
Peter Blood, a coach at the SKK Judo Club in Merseyside, said he was drinking at another bar when the terrorists were shot.
He said: ‘People came running down the road with fear in their eyes. They were so scared and screaming. One woman was hysterical. They were getting dragged into the bar and the shutters were being pulled down.
‘I had an idea that it might be a terrorist attack. I had never seen so many police in the town earlier in the evening. Maybe they had intelligence that something was going to happen.’