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European bronze medallist
Sophie Cox stepped onto the medal rostrum for the sixth time this
year as she won bronze at the Olympic Test Event at the London
ExCel.
The first day of competition
saw the -57kg and -73kg categories in action as LOCOG replicated
day three of the 2012 London Olympic Games programme.
Sophie had a bye in the
first round before beating Italian Monica Iacorossi by ippon.
The British standout narrowly
lost out to Brazil’s Ketleyn Quadros and entered the repechage.
A win over Ghana’s Szandra
Szogedi by ippon sealed a bronze medal contest against teammate
Stephanie Inglis who impressed as she reached the semi-final before
losing to Japan’s eventual silver medallist Nozomi Hirai.
All eyes were on the -57kg
bout as the British pair squared off. In a nervy contest Sophie
triumphed by ippon to continue her rich vein of form having captured
the same colour medal at the star-studded Amsterdam Grand Prix
a fortnight ago.
After stepping off the
medal rostrum Sophie said: “It’s been productive for me, this
is what I came here for.
"I like the venue,
I was getting a nice vibe with the crowd were right behind us.”
In the -73kg category Britain’s
Jan Gosiewski battled his way into the afternoon session.
Jan started his campaign
with victory over teammate Sam O’Loughlin by ippon.
Romania’s Denis Mititelu
was eliminated in the same fashion to advance to a clash with
German Igor Wandtke. The contest went the distance with Jan scoring
a yuko and his opponent taking the win with a waza-ari which saw
the Brit enter the repechage ase he faced Czech Republic judoka
David Dubsky.
Jan looked to have sent
the crowd into raptures with an emphatic ippon victory but the
decision was overturned before another ippon score from the home
judoka was chalked off. Despite a determined showing Jan agonisingly
lost out to a single yuko.
Meanwhile at the Korea
World Cup in Jeju, Gemma Gibbons took bronze as the -70kg judoka
won three of her four fights by ippon.
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