Seventh for Gibbons in Astana

Day five at the 2015 World Judo Championships in Astana saw 2015 Baku Grand Slam winner Sally CONWAY (-70kg), 2015 Masters silver medalist Natalie POWELL (-78kg) and London 2012 Olympic silver medalist Gemma GIBBONS (-78kg) in action. 

Sally Conway met Chizuru ARAI (JPN) in the second round of the -70kg category. After a tight battle against the Japanese judoka and a shido on each side, golden score was called where the Japanese player pulled out a great piece of ashi-waza work to score for yuko and advance to the next round. Meanwhile, on the other end of the Alau Ice Palace, Natalie Powell saw off Assunta GALEONE (ITA) by yuko in the first round and shortly after she faced Luise MALZAHN (GER). The German fighter was certainly on form and threw Powell for Ippon. Malzahn went onto win bronze.

The first contest for Gemma Gibbons saw Samantha BLEIER (USA) as the opposition, where a left sided waza-ari put her through to the next round. The next contest was against former World Champion Kyong SOL (PRK). After a shido to each player, Sol scored waza-ari with a sode-tsuri-komi attack. In response Gibbons took her opponent down with an astonishing left sided ouch-gari. 

In the quarter-finals, Gibbons was facing 2014 World bronze medalist, Anamari VELENSEK (SLO). The British judoka was behind on shidos before the Slovenian scored yuko not long before the buzzer went off. This meant that Gibbons faced Marhide VERKERK (NED) in the repechage where once again the she was given shidos on a regular basis until it added up to the maximum of four and allowed the Dutch judoka to book her spot in the bronze medal contest, where she took her last and final victory of the day. 

Speaking after the repechage fight, Gibbons said: “All in all I have mixed feelings. This is the first time I placed at a World Championships so that’s nice but I didn’t come here to place, I came here to medal. I am pretty frustrated for not being able to turn my last two fights into wins, however I think and the result shows as well that I am getting better and getting back to the level I know I can be and the level where it is a very small margin whether I am on the podium or not.”

“Gemma had a good day today. Over the last few months she got back up to that level where she was. At the beginning of the year she was chasing points but today she showed she is back up again. She fought well today. A little bit disappointed for her not being able to fight for bronze and I think in the repechage the pace, the penalties been given to Gemma was hard but this is judo and on another day this might have been a medal. Overall, I am really happy with her performance today”, added GB Elite performance coach, Jean-Paul Bell

The last day of the individual tournament will see Ben FLETCHER in action in the -100kg category. The tournament will start 06:00am (GMT). 

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