Tough day for GB Judo at Junior Worlds

It wasn’t to be for GB Judo on Thursday 19 October at the 2017 Junior World Championships in Zagreb with each fighter going out in their contest.

Dan Powell was first up at -73kg taking on Moldova’s Ion Nacu. The British judoka picked up an early shido for a gripping infringement and the powerful Moldovan upped the rate of attack to force a second shido for passivity.

Powell couldn’t get his judo going against Nacu and 20 seconds into golden score he picked up a third shido for stepping out.

Acelya Toprak (-57kg) had a bye into the second round where she took on Belgium’s Mina Libeer. The Belgian has had a good 2017 including gold medals at the Gdynia and Arad Junior European Cups.

Toprak made a strong start though as she put Libeer on the back foot with a number of strong exchanges. However it was the British judoka who picked up the first shido for a defensive posture.

She continued to put the pressure on her opponent but with little over a minute left she was countered well by Libeer to go behind by waza-ari. The Belgian soon picked up a second waza-ari as she forced Toprak to ground off another attack by the British judoka. Toprak was unable to get the scores back in time and exited in the second round.

Chelsie Giles was the last GB judoka to fight as she faced Amber Ryheul (BEL) in the second round at -52kg. Giles made a good start as she forced Ryheul to pick up a shido for a defensive posture.

In a cagey contest Ryheul’s tactic of throwing in attacks, even when not particularly dangerous, started to tell as the British judoka found herself pick up two shidos in regular time for passivity.

Moving into golden score the Belgian continued to throw in attacks with Giles unable to respond in kind. Eventually after a minute and a half of golden score the British judoka picked up a third shido for passivity.

Tomorrow (Friday 20 October) will be the turn of Lubjana Piovesana (-63kg), Stuart McWatt (-81kg) and Jamal Petgrave (-90kg).

Competition will start at 0900 UK time with live streaming via britishjudo.org.uk. Check out the full draw on ippon.org and follow @BritishJudo on Twitter for build-up and results updates.