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Colin Oates won a bronze
medal at the 2011 Bucharest World Cup over the weekend, his second
bronze this year adding to a bronze medal-win at the European
Championships in April.
After being injured at
the start of the year, Oates is undoubtedly back on form and put
in another hard fought performance at the World Cup on Saturday
4 th June 2011, winning four out of his five fights.
The Brit beat Maxim Fominah
of Moldova in the first round, followed by Catalin Bratulescu
of Romania by ippon. Oates then beat Pawel Zagrodnik of Poland,
who is currently ranked 10 places higher than the Brit on the
IJF World Ranking List, also by ippon.
The semi-final then saw
a close fight between Oates and two-time Paris Grand Slam bronze
medallist David Larose of France. But Oates picked up one too
many penalty points and lost the fight.
After refocusing and with
the bronze medal set in his sights, Oates fought another French
opponent, Sebastien Berthalot. Oates’ yuko score won him the fight
and the bronze medal when the clock ran out.
Commenting on Oates’ performance,
Head Coach Patrick Roux said, “Colin put in a very good performance
at the Bucharest World Cup, defeating some strong opponents such
as the French player Berthelot and Polish player Zagrodnik.
“He is getting consistent
results now at this level which is really encouraging to see.”
Earning a 5 th place at
the World Cup was Camberley Judo Club’s Daniel Williams who won
a gold medal at the 2011 Sarajevo European Cup in April.
The Brit won his first
three fights against Grigorios Nazarov of Greece, Michael Eldred
of USA, who is ranked 64 places higher than Williams, and Adrian
Nicolae Merge of Romania.
Williams then came unstuck
against Rasul Boqiev of Tajikistan in the semi-final and against
Hasan Vanlioglu of Turkey in the bronze medal final.
Roux said, “Danny Williams
also performed well finishing in 5th place after closely losing
to Vanlioglu, the bronze medallist from the 2010 European Championships
in Istanbul, in the final,” Roux added.
“We have more players coming
close to the international standard now, and this is exactly our
strategy as we expect to connect 8 to 10 players to this standard
before starting the final year for London 2012,” he added.
©
Mike Varey
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