Bronze Medal For Sally Conway On Second Day of Antalya Grand Prix

Sally Conway has won Antalya Grand Prix Bronze in the -70kg category on the second day of competition in Turkey that accompanies Chelsie Giles’ maiden Grand Prix medal won yesterday.

It was an accomplished day of judo from Conway as she edged out Hungary’s World No.16 Szabina Gerscak in the Bronze medal contest in dramatic fashion.

She had to come from a waza-ari score down early on in the contest against Gerscak. She attempted ashi-waza in the opening minute but was unsuccessful before being caught with the same technique by her opponent. This unsettled Conway to begin with as she picked up a shido for a lack of intent in the grip. But with a minute left on the clock she was able to register a waza-ari to level the contest. The final 10 seconds of the contest began and it looked to be heading towards Golden Score before Conway spotted an opportunity on the mat to seize her chance and was able to force Gerscak to submit with just ONE second left on the clock.

She swept aside Jovana Pekovic (MNE) in the opening round in under 30 seconds as tani-otoshi accounted for her opponent and provide the perfect start to the day for the Edinburgh judoka.

Canada’s Kelita Zupancic awaited Conway in the Quarter Finals, and she started the contest very well as she looked to apply pressure to her Canadian opponent. She looked to take the contest to the mat and somewhat surprisingly the Canadian was able to reverse the move and force Conway to submit.

This dropped Conway into the repechage where she came up against Ireland’s Megan Fletcher. She was keen to make amends for her loss earlier in the day and she controlled the gripping exchange throughout. Halfway through the contest, Conway was able to catch Fletcher and unbalance her and looked to secure an arm lock from the resulting fall. The arm lock came to nothing but a waza-ari was awarded from the takedown. This was enough to secure the win for Conway and set up the contest against Gerscak.

“I wasn’t feeling my best today and had to dig deep for the wins” Conway explained following her victory.

“I now have two weeks of final preparation before the European Championships to get myself contest sharp and feeling good.”

Coach Kate Howey echoed Sally’s comments as she added “Sally was a bit slow today but it shows that on a “not so good” day, she can still perform and achieve a great result.”

“This is all part of Sally’s preparations for the Europeans in two weeks time, where she will be at her best.”

Owen Livesey (-81kg) dominated his opening round contest of the -81kg competition against Srdjan Mrvaljevic (MNE) but couldn’t find a score as the fight progressed through to Golden Score. Two minute passed before Livesey was able to find the score that he was looking for to progress.

He came unstuck against Vladimir Zoloev (KGZ) in second round as another Livesey contest progressed to Golden Score. Livesey tired by the this stage and left himself open to an attack from Zoloev to finish the contest.

Danny Williams (-73kg), like Livesey before him, won his opening contest before being eliminated in the following round. He was able to see off his Round 2 opponent, Junior Santos (BRA) before succumbing to defeat by Mohammad Mohammadi in the 3rd Round.

There were disappointments for both Alex Paske (-73kg) and Lubjana Piovesana (-63kg) as both were defeated in the opening contests on the mat.

Alex Paske was edged out in the first round against Ion Nacu (MDA) as he picked up a third shido, while Lubjana Piovesana lost out to Brazil’s Alexia Castilhos as the Brazilian registered ippon in the second round, following a bye in the first round.