Jemima Yeats-Brown still has it in her after long ACL recovery

At the European Open in Rome Jemima Yeats-Brown was the celebrated judoka on Sunday. The British judoka suffered many injuries and seriously had to consider to stop doing judo give n her injuries. However it also gave the opportunity to fill her time with making a full analysis and fight plan of all her opponents. That useful time paid off today.

British Jemima Yeats-Brown spent countless hours to watch all videos, note all strong and especially weak points and at some point she could use her extra knowledge.

In the final U70kg she defeated Kelita Zupancic, a world class player who also, like Yeats-Brown, needed a few contests to get back into the game after a period of rest or recuperation. Yeats-Brown who is a specialist in ne-waza took her chance against Zupancic and always excels when it comes to the bigger opponents. Yeats recently recovered from her ACL operation managed  to score with a kosoto gake for waza ari. But there was more to get and with an osei komi waza Yeats took the gold in Rome.

Yeats didn’t get it for free with victories over number one seed Michaela Polleres, a tough fight but she got through it and also Dutch talent Hilde Jager was defeated in the semi final. Zupancic who she fought previously and lost to at a European Cup was this time caught by Yeats-Brown. The British warmed up in Tunis and Paris but at this level she apparently found a better way of surviving a few matches. Bronze was for French Melissa Heleine who overcame Emilie Sook (DEN) in her last fight and Carola Paissoni who was among the three Italian medallists in Ostia, close to Rome.

Rinoko Wada of Japan claimed the gold U78kg after her final contest against Evelin Salanki of Hungary and became the youngest medallist of this weekend. Belgian Sophie Berger this time won bronze on captured her first World Cup medal. Linda Politi of Italy survived the shift of five Italian participants in this category.

Heavyweight Nami Inamori was the expected winner +78kg. She bested Eleonora Geri, Italy’s best performer today, although the field was just between 12 athletes. Emese Karpati (HUN) and Sara Yamamoto (JPN) took bronze.