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Great Britain had to
settle for five 5th places at the Moscow Grand Slam over the weekend.
The tournament which
took place in the Russian capital from 3rd – 4th July 2010 saw
Euan Burton, Colin Oates, Sarah Adlington, Karina Bryant and Sally
Conway narrowly miss out on bronze medals.
British Judo’s Head
Coach Patrick Roux is “generally pleased” with the performances
across the team at this event and felt that “finishing with 5x5th
places at this level is a good indicator of improvement ahead
of this year's World Championships in two months time.”
Sitting comfortably
in the top five -81kg judo players in the World, Burton was seeded
into the third round. His first fight saw a win by hansoku-make
and he won his second bout against Nyamkhuu Damdinsuren of Mongolia
by ippon.
The
quarter final saw a close fight between Burton and Dae-Nam Song
(KOR). The time ran out on the clock and the Korean’s yuko point
won him the fight, placing Burton in 5th .
Current
European bronze medallist Karina Bryant (+78kg) also fought in
a close quarter final against the world ranked no.2 and
IJF Masters Champion, Qian Qin of China.
The Brit was rolled
for waza-ari after incurring a penalty warning. She received another
shido and although her opponent got two shidos it was not enough
to win the fight and she finished 5th.
In
the same weight category, Sarah Adlington lost to world
ranked no.8 Urszula Sadkowska of Poland in the quarter final after
two wins in the preliminary rounds.
Colin Oates beat Jasper
De Jong (NED), Pawel Zagrodnik (POL) and Damir Issakhanov (KAZ)
in the preliminaries for a place in the -66kg quarter final.
Oates lost his quarter
final fight to the world ranked no.2, Alim Gadanov of Russia,
who scored a waza-ari early on in the fight and despite Oates’
yuko score with kouchi-gari it was not enough to win the fight
when the clock ran out.
The fifth Brit to finish
in 5th place was Sally Conway who had an impressive ippon win
over Dusseldorf Grand Prix bronze medallist Kelita Zupancic of
Canada after just one minute and 14 seconds. Conway later lost
to Ye-Sul Hwang of South Korea in the quarter final.
The rest of the 19-strong
team failed to progress past the preliminaries, but saw some notable
wins by Sarah Clark (-63kg) against European silver medallist
Edwige Gwend (ITA), Faith Pitman (-63kg) who beat European Champion
Elisabeth Willeboordse (NED) and James Austin who beat the European
bronze medallist in the -100kg weight category, Ariel Zeevi, in
his first bout.
James Millar’s second
contest in the -60kg weight category went to golden score and
saw a throw by Millar for yuko taken off the board, after an intervention
by the IJF refereeing commission. The Brit kept attacking and
despite another strong throw was unfortunate to accumulate a penalty
warning and shido to lose the fight.
Roux further said, “This
last two to three weeks training block, mostly in Russia, has
allowed us to intensify the training and exposure to some competitions
including the Moscow Grand Slam.”
©
Mike Varey
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