GB Judo finish second on the medal table in Glasgow

GB Judo added seven medals to their 2018 Glasgow European Open haul on Sunday 7 October at the Emirates Arena.

The two silvers and five bronze medals won today, in addition to the two gold medals from Saturday, meant that GB Judo finished second in the medal table behind France.

Shelley Ludford (-78kg) and Stuart McWatt (-81kg) both lost out in close finals to Ilona Lucassen (NED) and Shamil Borchashvili (AUT) respectively.

Ludford was fighting in her first European Open and has been at -78kg for less than a year. The 19 year old had little trouble against Australia’s Melanie Wallis as she threw her waza-ari and finished the fight in osaekomi.

Her newaza came to the fore in her next two contests as she forced both Laia Talarn (ESP) and Anett Meszaros (HUN) to tap from shime-waza (strangles).

This setup a final against Lucassen and the Dutch judoka took the win thanks to a single waza-ari score.

Despite missing out on gold, Ludford was not too disheartened with the result:

“I’m really happy with my performance today, especially my semi fight, beating the Hungarian, I was really happy with that.

“I won a lot in newaza today but just shows that my technical sessions are working.

“I didn’t expect to get into the final. I know it’s bad, but I literally didn’t have any nerves the night before. I just wanted to go out there, perform my best and I did.”

Inverurie judoka McWatt had won bronze at the Glasgow European Open three years ago but had missed large parts of 2016 and 2017 due to back to back ACL knee injuries.

McWatt had to grind out his opening fight against Netherlands’ Thomas Snijders with a waza-ari proving decisive.

His next fight against Adam Borchashvili (AUT) was ended with just over a minute left as McWatt scored for waza-ari twice.

He then had to go to golden score against Hungary’s former European Championships medallist Szabolcs Krizsan, once again a single waza-ari giving the win to the British fighter.

McWatt controlled large parts of his final against Shamil Borchashvili but made an error in golden score and was thrown for ippon by the Austrian judoka.

The 21 year old was disappointed to have missed out on gold in front of a home crowd but was pleased to have medalled.

“Getting to the final, having a chance to fight for gold and then you almost you lose to get silver, it was hard.

“Especially because I thought I fought a pretty good fight in the final and it was a small mistake.

“But to come here, back to Glasgow, get a medal at a Continental Open, really proud of myself today for performing quite well.”

Jemima Yeats-Brown joined Ludford on the -78kg medal rostrum as she won bronze.

The Kent judoka has now won senior world ranking medals at three different weight categories (-63kg, -70kg and -78kg) and has only been at the heavier weight since May.

Yeats-Brown went to golden score in her medal fight against Giorgia Stangherlin (ITA) and with just under five minutes on the clock she was able to throw the Italian for waza-ari.

Young Emily Ritchie (+78kg) was the youngest medal winner for GB this weekend at just 17.

Ritchie started her day well with a comeback win over Patricia Ferrer Bartulos (ESP), throwing the Spaniard for ippon.

She was due to fight fellow GB judoka Sarah Hawkes for bronze but Hawkes was unable to fight due to injury.

At -90kg Jamal Petgrave won his first senior world ranking medal with bronze.

The former Junior European silver medallist had missed the last two to three months of competition due to injury but was able to grind out the bronze medal fight against Bas Van Empelen (NED).

The Westcroft judoka threw Van Empelen for a second waz-ari with little under a minute left to secure his podium finish.

Rhys Thompson (-100kg) has had his fair share of injury troubles in recent times, including ACL surgery.

The Bath judoka was fighting for only the third time this year but performed brilliantly in his bronze medal contest as he threw Emil Mattsson (SWE) twice for waza-ari inside 90 seconds.

Adam Hall won an all-British bronze medal fight at +100kg as he beat Wesley Greenidge in golden score.

Hall used his experience well as he countered Greenidge for waza-ari.

You can find GB Judo competition highlights on our Twitter account @BritishJudo and action and medal photos from across the weekend at our Facebook Page: British Judo Association