Day Five Round-Up: Disappointment for Team GB Judoka After Promising Start

Team GB made a promising start to day five of the Olympic Judo competition with both Winston Gordon and Sally Conway winning convincingly in their opening contests.

London judoka Gordon, 35, who finished fifth at Athens 2004, dispatched Canadian Alexandre Emond with a spectacular spinning sweeping hip throw (harai-goshi).  

In the second round he lined up against Russia’s two-time world silver medallist who caught Gordon with a yuko on the edge of the area to end his dream of Olympic glory.  

“As you could see, it was tough out there,” said three-time Olympian Gordon.  “It all went a little bit awkward on my game plan. It was going OK until he had a lucky counter and then he held on to it.”

“The crowd were great but my family, my friends, my coach, especially my coach, they all worked hard to get me here. It was my opponent’s day today, and I’ll have to move on. All the people coming to support us helped to push us on.” 

Sally Conway, 25, from Bristol, looked a threat in the -70kg category as she dominated Chad judoka Carine Ngarlemdana and registered a full house of scores with a yuko and waza-ari putting her firmly in control before a hold-down for ippon. 

Conway’s victory set up a difficult tie with one of the most decorated active judoka –  Netherlands’ standout Edith Bosch who lists four European titles, two Olympic medals and three world medals among her achievements.   

There was nothing between the two until Bosch ramped up her quarter-final bid with 30 seconds left as she went in for an inner thigh throw (uchi-mata) to score a waza-ari which left Conway with no time to respond.