4th March 2008

Bronzes for Gordon and Millar at last World Cup event

Winston Gordon and James Millar both won bronze medals at the 2008 Prague World Cup at the weekend.

The weekend’s 2008 Prague World Cup for men and the 2008 Warsaw World Cup for women were the last in a 12-month Olympic qualifying period, which will finish at the 2008 European Championships, to be held in Lisbon in April.

Winston Gordon looked truly world class in the -90kg category and was phenomenal on ground, arm locking Valentyn Grekov of the Ukraine in the bronze medal fight.

Relentless in every match, he left his opponents no place to hide. He beat Karolis Bauza of Lithuania in his first match of the preliminary round, lost only to David Alazara of Spain after a closely fought match, and then overwhelmed Vladyslav Potapov of the Ukraine, and Eduardo Santos of Brazil beating them both by the maximum ippon score in the repechage.

The result was crucial for Athens Olympian Gordon as it takes him into 8th position in the Olympic rankings in this weight category.

James Millar also looked strong in the -60kg weight category, beating Damien Bomboir of Belgium, Siarhei Movikau of Belarus, and Lee Alexandre of Brazil, before losing to Maksym Korotun of the Ukraine in the semi-final. In the bronze medal match Millar looked exceptional beating Cyrill Soyer of France with two consecutive waza-ari scores within 40 seconds of each other to end the match.

In Warsaw Georgina Singleton finished in 5th place in the -52kg weight category fighting well but getting arm locked against Monika Cabaj of Poland. In the repechage she threw every opponent for the maximum score before losing against Natalie Kuzyutina of Russia in golden score to miss out on the bronze medal.

Margaret Hicks, Director of World Class Programmes said, “At this stage in the Olympic qualification with only the European Championships left to go we cannot afford complacency for those players just inside or just outside the qualification zone. However for those still some way from qualification, there is still the opportunity to produce a medal winning performance, which could secure an additional place for the 2008 GB Olympic Judo Team”.  

To qualify the GB spot for Beijing a top 9 placing for men, or a top 5 placing for women, is required at the end of the qualification period (only one spot per country allowed).

The latest European Olympic Qualification Rankings following the weekend’s events can be found below.

-60kg

3rd Craig Fallon

4th James Millar

-66kg

31st Colin Oates

-73kg

18th Matt Purssey

-81kg

GB spot qualified

-90kg

8th Winston Gordon

-100kg

GB spot qualified

-52kg

11th Georgina Singleton

14th Sophie Johnstone

-57kg

8th Faith Pitman

-63kg

1st Sarah Clark

-70kg

7th Sally Conway

-78kg

1st Michelle Rogers

+78kg

GB spot qualified

Places above have been calculated by discounting those spots/countries already qualified.

Media Contact:

Emma Griffin

British Judo

(t) 01509 631692

emmagriffin@britishjudo.org.uk