Conway throws for Gold in Baku

The medal shower continued at the Sarhadchi Sport Olympic Centre during the second day of the Baku Grand Slam. Gemma Howell had an early exit in the u63kg category, however, her team mate, Alice Schlesinger managed to fight her way onto the podium and will be returning home with the bronze medal.

On her way to the medal zone, Schlesinger stunned both Bazynski (GER) and Haecker (AUS) with her classic left sided koshi-guruma. She than met Labazina (RUS) in the quarter-finals who she perviously lost out at one of the European Open. However, today there was no question left behind on who is going through to the next round as this time the Russian judoka was not able to resist the strong throwing skills of Schlesinger.

In the semis, she was facing later on gold medalist, Unterwurzacher (AUT), who was the only person being able to handle the left sided dominance of the British fighter and managed to counter attack Schlesinger which set her to fight for bronze. During the battle for the medal, Schlesinger pulled out an other astonishing attack to score yuko against Ozdoba (POL) and allow her to claim the bronze medal on the first Grand Slam of this year.

“I fought better today than last week. I felt sharper and I had a good win against Labazina who has beaten me before. This is more points towards Rio so I am very happy” – Schlesinger expressed her feelings after the bronze contest

In agreement to the above, GB elite performance coach, Kate Howey added “Alice performed much better this week and looked a lot sharper. The wins against the Russian and German were good and this sets her up for the Europeans Games and the masters. The aim of the first part of the year was qualify for masters and she has, so all good.”

Sally Conway took silver medal last year at the Baku Grand Slam where she lost against Kim Polling (NED) in the final. Today, she left no stones unturned and went on to win it, and so she did. At the start of the day Conway defeated Bleier (USA) before executing an armlock against Diedrich (GER) to see herself in the semi-final. Graf (AUT) was up next to challenge her, where the fight was going head to head, however, Conway’s tactical skills and experience allowed her to go through to the final stage.

The re-match of last years’ final was witnessed as Conway was once again to face world number 1, Kim Polling (NED) for the precious gold. An early yuko lead was taken by Polling, which didn’t set back the British judoka as she went on and threw for Ippon towards the very end of the contest. A breathtaking right sided ouchi-gari became the golden throw.

Jean-Paul Bell, GB elite performance coach was to take on the eventful day with Conway. “Sally had a great day today, her gripping, movement, ashi-waza and work rate were excellent.” – he recaped the day. “This will give her confidence going into the next block of events.” – he added.

Three of our athletes yet to shine in Baku. Ben Fletcher (u100kg), Natalie Powell (u78kg) and Gemma Gibbons (u78kg) will be competing on the last day of the tournament. To watch online please follow the link http://134.213.29.25/live/. The tournament starts 7:00AM (GMT).