Golden weekend for British Judo Juniors and Cadets

British Judo had a fantastic weekend of results with Britain placing second in the medal tables at both Junior and Cadet European cups alongside four medals from the four strong Visually Impaired (VI) British team in Brazil and medals at senior level in Casablanca and Montevideo.

In total, 31 medals were won across five competitions with impressive showings from the Junior and Cadet teams whose performances resulted in second placings in the medal tables. The GB VI team also took a stand out set of results competing in the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic host nation Brazil.

GB Juniors second in medal table at European Cup Coimbra

The GB Junior team in Coimbra, Portugal, claimed three gold, three silver and six bronze medals, alongside three 5th places and three 7th places. As a result, Great Britain took second place in the medal table ahead of large Spanish and Portuguese teams.

The -66kg category was a stand out group, with GB athletes, Eric Ham, Aiden Moffat and Daniel Powell dominating the medals, collecting gold, silver and bronze respectively.

Peter Miles and Lubjana Piovesana were also top of the podium with gold medals in -60kg and -63kg categories respectively.

Chelsie Giles was unlucky to miss out on gold, claiming the silver medal after losing out to Mariana Esteves in the -52kg final. Olivia Piechota also claimed silver in the -44kg category. Bronze medals were taken by Colin MacDonald (-73kg), Daniel Powell (-66kg), Valentino Volate (+100kg), Jodie Caller (-57kg), Rachel Moon (-78kg) and Michelle Boyle (+78kg).

Ramsay and Chamerlain double up on medals at Pan American Open Montevideo

Connie Ramsay (-57kg) and Frazer Chamberlain (-90kg) added to their bronze medals at last week’s Pan American Open in Chile with bronze medals at the Pan American Open in Montevideo this weekend.

Chamberlain faced tough opposition in Kirill Denisov in the bronze medal fight. Denisov took gold at last week’s Pan American Open in Chile, but Chamberlain took the contest by ippon and claimed his second bronze medal in the space of a week.

Ramsay took bronze through repecharge, beating Spain’s Concepcion Bellorin for the win, adding another bronze in South America.

Kim Renicks took home a bronze medal in the -48kg category, improving on her 5th place last week. Lousie Renicks (-52kg) took a 5th place in Montevideo and Nathon Burns (-66kg) and Adam Hall (-100kg) both took 7th places. 

Kelly Edwards (-52kg) took bronze at the African Open in Casablanca. Despite losing out to France’s Louise Raynaud in a preliminary contest, Kelly fought back through repecharge to take the bronze medal beating fellow London 2012 Olympian, Marie Muller in the bronze medal contest. 

Team Bath’s Gregg Varey (-66kg) returned from injury to pick up a 5th place, with Philip Awiti-Alcaraz (-100kg), Gary Hall (-90kg) and Jodie Myers (+78kg) also taking 5th places.

“We demonstrated that we can perform at every level”

British Judo Performance Director, Nigel Donohue, said: “I’m really pleased, it was a very positive weekend for British Judo. We demonstrated that we can perform and win at every level, whether that’s cadets, juniors, seniors or VI, this weekend has shown the standard of British Judo at the moment.

“We’re starting to see improved results from the GB centralised performance system with a greater cohesion and integration between the home nation’s programmes. It was great to see the results of this at the weekend.

“Credit is due to those who competed at the Pan American Open and African Open this weekend, making the effort to self-fund to progress toward making podium criteria and acheiving some good results in the process.”

Kerrith Brown, British Judo Chairman, added: “It’s great to see the next cohort coming through and the results we’ve seen this weekend were fantastic at all levels. I’m delighted with the performances of the juniors and cadets, and the VI team who took some great results on Saturday, as well as the seniors at Montevideo and Casablanca, some top results all round.”

Cadets take 12 medals and second place in medal table at European Cup Fuengirola

The GB Cadet team in Fuengirola, Spain, took three gold, three silver and six bronze medals, which saw GB take the second spot in the medal table, only behind host nation Spain.

Gold medals were taken by Harry Lovell-Hewitt (-81kg), Chloe Nunn (-70kg) and Acelya Toprak (-63kg), with silver medals awarded to Wesley Greenidge (+90kg), Scott Thompson (-60kg) and Shelley Ludford (-70kg), who was only denied gold by fellow Brit, Chloe Nunn in the -70kg category.

Bronze medal winners included Daniel Mair (-90kg), Sebastian Potter (-81kg), Molly Harvey (-44kg), Yasmin Javadian (-48kg), Amy Platten (-44kg) and Olivia Spellman (-63kg).

Congratulations to all the British competitors this weekend.