Two Fifth Places for GB Judo at Tashkent Grand Prix

There were two fifth placed finishes for GB Judo on the final day of competition at the Tashkent Grand Prix, which meant that the squad leaves the competition empty handed.

Both Frazer Chamberlain (-90kg) and Sarah Adlington (+78kg) could not find a win in the Bronze medal contests to finish with GB’s best results of the tournament in Uzbekistan.

Frazer Chamberlain has had a number of near misses over the past twelve months as he looks for that first Grand Prix medal of his career which has so far eluded him.

He started the day with a professional victory over Switzerland’s Ciril Grossklaus in the opening round of the day. It was even start between the two fighters before Chamberlain was able to secure an arm lock on the Swiss and forced him to submit.

There was a huge roar from the British fighter in the second round as a huge throw was enough to register ippon against home judoka Doston Meliev (UZB) to set up a Quarter Final contest against World No.3 and top seeded Krisztian Toth.

Chamberlain started the contest in blistering form and Toth couldn’t handle the early pressure from the Brit. Seemingly out of nowhere however, the Hungarian proved why he had won multiple Grand Prix and Grand Slam titles to catch Chamberlain and throw him for ippon.

He saw off Uzbekistan’s Islam Bozbayev in the repechage courtesy of a hip throw off his hips which again drew a loud roar from the Camberley judoka.

Russia’s Ivan Vorobev came with an excellent game plan against Chamberlain in the Bronze medal contest which effectively neutralised his high tempo attacking intent. It caused Chamberlain to struggle in the gripping exchanges and as a result picked up three shidos to finish in Fifth position.

Following a bye in the opening round, Adlington opened the day with a potentially tricky second round contest against the European U23 Championships bronze medallist, Raz Herschko from Israel. It proved to be merely a warm up for Adlington though as she threw Herschko within the opening minute of the contest to progress to the Quarter Finals.

She ran into Caroline Weiss (GER) who owned a 2-0  head to head advantage over Adlington. The World No.15 extended that record further after she forced Adlington to pick up three shidos and drop her into the repechage.

It would be a reversal of fortunes in the repechage as Adlington came up against inexperienced Rinata Illmatova from Uzbekistan. This competition represented the best result of Illmatova’s relatively short career to date. She picked up shidos regularly throughout under pressure from Adlington before a third shido was awarded just over halfway through the contest.

This set up a bronze medal tussle against Ukraine’s Yelyzaveta Kalanina in the Bronze medal contest.

Adlington found herself on the wrong end of two waza-ari scores from the Ukrainian to join Frazer Chamberlain in fifth position for GB Judo.