Second World Tour victory for Sally Conway

British Sally Conway returned to the top of the IJF World Judo Tour podium at the expense of home judoka Qingdao Grand Prix bronze medallist Kim Seongyeon (KOR). Bristol-born Conway looked to take the contest to the ground at every opportunity and is ruthlessly precise with every movement in ne-waza.

Kim defended well from a juji-gatame attempt as she kept a leg trapped and was relieved to see the matte called as Baku Grand Slam winner Conway could not develop the technique into a potentially match-winning opportunity. The South Korean was second best against the irresistible Briton and was penalised with a shido which settled the scoreless final. 

World champion Gevrise Emane (FRA) fell to Hwang in her opening contest on shido penalties. The ones who reached the semi-final was Kim who defeated Qingdao Grand Prix winner Barbara Matic (CRO). The home judoka gradually took control of the contest and with a minute remaining was finally able to break the stubborn resistance of Matic by throwing her with a drop seoi-nage for waza-ari and that’s how the contest finished as Kim moved into a defensive mode and was penalised twice for going out of the area. In the second semi-final former World Judo Masters winner Hwang Ye-Sul (KOR) was eying a place in the final against her teammate Kim but Conway is a tenacious opponent and asked questions of her opponent until she could show her lethal groundwork as she tapped out the home fighter with a juji-gatame with 56 seconds left.

The first bronze medal was claimed by Abu Dhabi Grand Slam gold medallist Laura Vargas Koch (GER) who held down Hwang for 20 seconds. The German fighter has been in top form in recent months after a silver medal in Paris and gold in the U.A.E and has strengthened her ranking even further today after winning bronze. The second bronze medal contest was won by Matic – the sixth Grand Prix medal of her career – as she scored a waza-ari from a tani-otoshi against Tyumen Grand Slam runner-up Linda Bolder of Israel and then accumulated two shido penalties to wind down the clock.