Golden tears from Davis after winning her first Grand Prix title

The first day of the Croatian Grand Prix ended with golden moments whilst the national anthem of Great Britain played for Nekoda Davis at the Dom Sportova Sport Hall in Zagreb.

The 22 year old judoka started off with a tight contest against her Canadian opponent, Beauchemin-Pinard. However, from there onwards, Davis was unstoppable and soon saw herself defeating Olympic silver medalist Caprioriu (ROU) in the quarter-finals. Following that she throws again for Ippon, this time in the semis, setting back Zeltner (AUT) for the bronze medal.

In the final, she was up against Olympic bronze medalist and World silver medalist Malloy (USA). This was the third time they have met on the tournament with two previously less fortunate attempts for the British player. Malloy started off with a very dominating style putting the Davis under pressure with a number of penalties. Just when Malloy would settle for the idea of winning, Davis escapes off a dominant grip and throws her right arm on the top to then throw Malloy for Ippon with a breath-taking right sided ouchi-gari.

“My target was this morning to do my best performance and see what happens… my toughest fight was certainly the final as I was dominated but once I had my grip I knew I could throw her.” – explained Davis.

GB Team Elite Performance Coach, Kate Howey, summed up the first day of the tournament: “This year, the level of the tournament was much harder since all points fully counts towards Rio. As for Nekoda, she was brilliant. She thrown three players ranked in the top ten in the world.”

In the -66kg category, Nathon Burns shown a serious set of judo skills throughout the day whilst specifically challenging his opponents in ne-waza, winning two of his contest by arm-lock. Finishing 5th place on his third ever Grand Prix attendance shows his great input throughout the day.

The second day of the tournament will bring action from six British judoka. In the -63kg category, Alice Schlesinger will be facing Valkova of Russia in the first round. Schlesinger has not missed out on a podium place since representing Great Britain. In the same weight category but on the other side of the draw, Gemma Howell is also starting with a Russian opponent, Marta Labazina.

In the -70kg category, Britain also doubled the number of entries. Megan Fletcher will be up against Eiglova of the Czech Republic whilst Sally Conway will be waiting for the winner of Cantoni of Italy vs Gazieva of Russia to see who will be there to challenge for the first contest.

Double Pan-American gold medalist, Owen Livesey will have the opportunity to shine again in the -81kg category. Livesey will be waiting to face the winner of the contest between Dudchyk of Ukrain vs Tejenov of Turkmenistan. Meantime, Gary Hall will be preparing to defeat Swedish judoka, Nyman.

The tournament will start 9:00am (GMT) tomorrow morning.

For further information of the draw please visit http://www.ippon.org/gp_cro2015.php

For live streaming please see the link below

http://134.213.29.25/live/