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Scots James Millar and
Sarah Clark both claimed World Cup bronze medals at the latest
round of the IJF world circuit on Saturday.
Millar - who was able to
take advantage of the new initiative for players who meet the
performance criteria to self-fund their participation at World
Cup events - took the final place on the rmedal rostrum in Tallinn,
Estonia while Clark came to the fore in Lisbon, Portugal.
In Estonia, Millar won
three of four fights. The -60kg fighter opened with a win over
Azerbaijan’s Asim Khalafov before falling to Finn Juho Reinvall.
A win over Swede Alexander
Lundqvist booked a bronze medal contest against Valtteri Jokinen
of Finland. A yuko for -60kg fighter Millar was the only score
of the contest and saw him mark his return from injury with an
impressive bronze medal.
The 2010 British Open bronze
medallist said: “I’m very pleased to return with a place on the
rostrum, it’s just what I needed.
“I’ve been out for a while
with a knee injury and only back training for about two weeks
so the timing of players now being able to self-fund World Cup
trips was perfect. It’s a great confidence boost for me with the
World Championships just around the corner.
“I’d have been very disappointed
if I’d gone out early and not made a mark on the event, so I’ll
take a lot of positives from the bronze medal and it’s great to
be back competing.”
In Portugal, Clark, who
was one of five performance selections across both World Cup’s,
also won three of four contests. A win over Bahar Buker of Turkey
was followed by victory against German Claudia Ahrens.
The -63kg judoka lost out
to Croatia’s Marijana Miskovic in the semi-final put registered
a yuko and then an ippon to win the bronze medal showdown against
Russian Ekaterina Valkova.
In Estonia, Chris Sherrington
and Danny Williams finished seventh in the +100kg and -73kg categories
respectively while in Portugal fifth-places went to +78kg judoka
Sarah Adlington and Faith Pitman who saw action in the -63kg field.
Margaret Hicks, Performance
Director, said: “We have a packed programme for our elite players
over the next three months leading into the World Championships
and we are now raising the bar for selection to this event and
importantly for the performances we expect players to achieve
over the next year, in order to be considered for the 2012 London
Olympic team.
"We have also opened
up additional opportunities to a wider group of players as the
first set of ‘self funded’ World Cups were made available in Tallinn
and Lisbon.
“To get approval to compete
in these World Cups a player must have won an European Cup medal
this year, or in 2010 and also be a member of the current British
Squad. This initiative will help intensify competition between
the best British players as we enter the final Olympic phase."
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