Euan Burton produced Great Britain’s top result at the 2010 World Championships held in Japan, winning a bronze medal in the -81kg competition and Gemma Howell reached a career best in the -57kg weight category.

Burton, who also won a bronze medal at the 2007 World Championships, had seven fights in the busy weight category, which saw a record number of 79 players.

Many weight categories reached historical numbers of participants for a competition of that level, a result of the International Judo Federation’s new rule of two entrants per weight category from each country.

After surging through five preliminary fights, winning against German Velazco (PER), Farkhod Rakhimov (TJK), Attaf Safouane (MAR) and Travis Stevens (USA), it was the host nation’s Mashahiro Takamatsu that stopped the Brit in his tracks.

“After beating Travis Stevens, the time I had until my next fight was literally five minutes, so I had to rush back to the warm-up area to quickly change from my blue kit to my white kit and walk straight back to the venue and onto the mat.

“So I had no rest in between, and I think that may have been the difference between being World Champion and not being World Champion today, I felt fatigued with the lack of time between the two fights.

With the bronze medal in sight, Burton fought former World Champion Guillaume Elmont (NED) and previous World and Olympic medallist Flavio Canto (BRA), who had also managed to find themselves in the repechage.

The Brit managed to pick himself back up and threw Elmont for ippon with uchi-mata, for a place in the bronze medal final.

After the arena in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park had been re-arranged so that all eyes were on one mat, the packed out crowd watched the fight go to full time and Burton’s early yuko point earn him the bronze medal.

“Even though I have won the bronze medal, I am a little disappointed as I felt I could have been World Champion today.

Burton’s sights are now firmly set on the London 2012 Olympics and said, “I’d probably give up all of the medals I've won to be top of the podium in London," he said.

"I'm 31 years old now and I love the training but there would be no point in me doing the sport if I didn't realistically think I could be top of the podium in two years' time.”

20-year-old Gemma Howell made her debut on the World stage after a 10 month injury lay-off, which made her miss her last Junior European and World Championships last year.

Whilst the youngster has only just started making the transition to senior level, she has already made a promising start, beating higher ranked players and earning a 7 th place at the Championships.

Howell’s most impressive win was against Japan’s Nae Udaka, who is ranked a whopping 83 places higher.

After competing, Howell said, “I am a bit gutted that I finished 7th, but now I have the experience and will know what to expect next time.

“I performed better than I did at the Moscow Grand Slam earlier this year and with 2012 coming up, I know what I need to do to get to the level I want to be at.

Other notable wins came from junior player Kelly Edwards in the -48kg weight category who narrowly missed getting into the final block. Performance Director, Margaret Hicks said, “This is a p romising sign for Edwards for the future and she is only 19-years-old.”  

It was clear to see that Japan was running the show, after bagging ten gold medals, four silver medals and nine bronze medals and topping the medal table, with no other country even coming close.

“Commenting in the team’s performance, Hicks said, “ Quite simply this World Championship was the toughest tournament ever, with high quality judo and increased numbers of competitors - 850 from 111 countries. 

“Some performances from our team have been encouraging, particularly from young development players such as Gemma Howell at -57 kilos, who demonstrated she has great potential and held her own at this level to finished 7th . 

“Euan Burton at -81 kilos was outstanding; he continued his consistency at this level, winning a bronze medal in style. There are some players we would have liked to achieve more, as they would themselves.

“To put this Championship level into context nearly half the team only lost to a player , who subsequently reached the final eight and in several cases fought for a medal or won a medal. 

“Therefore at this stage this the overall team performance is one of ‘work in progress’ and the business of now targeting major events for certain players to gain world ranking points under the recently introduced IJF competition format, will now be implemented.”

© David Finch