Fifth Place for Sarah Adlington at Zagreb Grand Prix

GB Judo ended the Zagreb Grand Prix with a haul of one silver medal and one bronze medal after Sarah Adlington (+78kg) and Philip Awiti-Alcaraz (-100kg) could not add to the tally on the third and final day of action in Croatia

Sarah Adlington claimed a respective fifth place in the +78kg while Philip Awiti-Alcaraz injured himself as he succumbed to a first round exit.

Adlington started the day in cautious fashion as she came up against Russia’s Mariia Shekerova in the opening round. It was a nervous opening two minutes for the pair as neither judoka was prepared to make an attack. This resulted in a pair of shidos for each fighter and it came as no surprise that the contest was decided on a third shido with the Russian picking up a third.

Japanese Nami Inamori awaited Adlington in the Quarter Finals. Adlington picked up an early shido in the match as she lacked attacking intent in the opening stages. Her Japanese opponent waited for her chance scored a waza-ari made the successful transition to keep Adlington on the mat to score the ippon finish.

This dropped Adlington into the repechage and she comfortably navigated past Hungary’s Emese Karpati to move into the bronze medal contest.

She would come up against French fighter Anne Fatoumata M Bairo. It was an improved performance by Adlington as she continually looked the stronger of the pair in the first half of the match. She failed with two attacks and on the third she was unfortunately countered by M Bairo and ended up on the mat and was held down to lose via osaekomi.

Earlier in the day, Philip Awiti-Alacaraz (-100kg) was looking to add to his Cancun Grand Prix claimed in the first half of 2017. It wasn’t to be on the day though as he lost to home favourite Marko Kumric. What was more worrying was the fact that Awiti-Alcaraz stayed on the canvas after the fight, in pain. He was eventually helped from the mat and we will bring you updated news of his health when we hear about it.