Conway Claims Slam Silver in Baku

Sally Conway won Great Britain’s second medal of the Baku Grand Slam in Azerbaijan with silver in the -70kg category.

The Grand Slam is a top level event on the International Judo Federation’s (IJF) world tour, with Conway looking to follow up Colin Oates gold medal in the -66kg category yesterday.

Edinburgh-based Conway, originally from Bristol, is Great Britain’s top ranked judoka and this result will go even further towards cementing her place in the world top eight ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic qualification period.

Conway opened her campaign with a victory over Katarzyna Klys. The Polish athlete scored yuko but a determined effort from the GB star saw her score a waza-ari with just two seconds left on the clock to seal the win.

The semi-final saw Conway face Heide Wollert. The German took an early advantage, throwing Conway for a yuko inside 30 seconds. Conway then levelled the score with a yuko throw after two minutes before the German was penalised late on, giving Conway the victory by a shido.

The final matched Conway against world number one and European Champion Kim Polling. Conway put in a good performance but Polling proved too strong with a waza-ari throw separating the two and giving gold to the Dutch star.

Commenting on her performance, Conway said: “Since the Europeans I had one thing that I wanted to improve and I did it well.

“I’m pleased with my tachi waza scoring today as I got some scores with uchi mata.

“I’ve wanted to fight Polling for a while now and today I got the chance. Although I lost the contest I’ve taken some positives from it.”

GB Women’s Lead Coach Kate Howey said: “Sally bounced back well after her disappointment at the European Championships.

“She has learnt from the Europeans and put some technical and tactical pieces into her judo today and it showed.

“Even though she lost to the world number one there are lots of positives to take from the fight. Overall it was a very good performance from Sally.”

The competition continues tomorrow with Natalie Powell (-78kg) competing.

Action starts at 10:00 local time (06:00 BST) with live video on www.ippon.tv and results at www.ippon.org

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