Baku Grand Slam 2015 – Oates returns to double his Grand Slam titles

After a successful weekend in Croatia, the GB elite judo team has already relocated to the capital city of Azerbaijan, Baku, where the first Grand Slam of the year will be taking place throughout the weekend.

With almost 400 entries across 49 nations, our athletes will not only be aiming for important qualification points but will have a slight taste of what it will be like to compete at the first ever European Games which will also be hosted by Baku next month. Moreover, this is the last opportunity to qualify for the Masters tournament, so the target is well set for each of them.

Last year, a delegation of four attended at the Baku Grand Slam and returned home with a gold won by Colin Oates and a silver medal earned by Sally Conway. This year the numbers are doubled up and eight of our athletes will be up on stage, including Nekoda Davis, who won her first ever Grand Prix title last weekend.

Returning to defend his title, Colin Oates is number one seeded in the -66kg and he will wait for the winner of Ardanov (RUS) vs Kielbansinski (POL) to see who he will have to take on as his first contest. On the same day of the tournament, Nekoda Davis will also be competing and will challenge 2008 Beijing Olympic Champion Quintavalle (ITA) as her first contest.

Day two will bring action from one of our duets in the -63kg category. Alice Schlesinger will face Bazynski (GER) whilst Gemma Howell will take on Hermansson (SWE) in the first round. Last year’s silver medalist, Conway will challenge Bleier (USA) in the first round of the -70kg cateogry. The last and final day of the tournament will see Ben Fletcher in action in the -100kg category, whilst the second duets, Natalie Powell and Gemma Gibbons will battle in the -78kg category. 

Check out the rest of the draw online: http://www.ippon.org/gs_aze2015.php

The competition will begin at 6:00AM (GMT). To watch online please follow the link http://134.213.29.25/live/