Lucy Renshall and Jemima Yeats-Brown continued their strong run of form at the end of 2016 as they won silver and bronze respectively at the 2016 Qingdao Grand Prix on Saturday 19 November.
SKK’s Renshall was going into the Grand Prix off the back of winning gold at the Under-23 European Judo Championships in Tel Aviv. The -63kg judoka got the better of China’s Cuijuan Shi in her opening contest with a yuko proving the difference in the British fighter’s favour.
Valentina Kostenko (RUS) was next up in the semi-finals but Renshall was too good for her opponent as a waza-ari score was enough to take her into the final against Nami Nabekura of Japan.
The Japanese judoka was Junior World Champion in 2015 and had won the Budapest Grand Prix earlier this year, which included a win over Rio Olympic gold medallist Tina Trstenjak (SLO). It was a tight contest with both judoka looking to dominate the gripping exchanges and put in a number of attacks but at the end of regulation time neither judoka could be separated by shidos or scores.
Nabekura went straight on the attack in golden score and was able to throw Renshall for yuko despite her best attempts to spin out of the attack. Renshall was left to pick up a silver medal, her first on the IJF World Tour, as well as 180 ranking points.
Jemima Yeats-Brown was another judoka going into the competition on good form with medals in her last three outings including bronze at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam. The -70kg fighter made a solid start with a win over Liu-Yu Shang (TPE), where a single shido gave Yeats-Brown the victory.
However the British judoka would just lose out in her next contest to South Korea’s former Asian Championships gold medallist Ye-Sul Hwang. The experienced judoka had the only score of the match, a yuko, and despite being forced to pick up three shidos was able to see out the contest.
The Ryecroft judoka bounced back however against Alena Prokopenko (RUS) displaying her ability to score in both tachiwaza and newaza. Both judoka were looking to throw big but it was Yeats-Brown who took the lead by waza-ari before highlighting her strength on the ground to turn the Russian judoka and hold her for the second waza-ari score.
Eric Ham (-73kg) was also in action on Saturday but he just missed out in the first round, losing to China’s Yifan Yang by a shido in golden score.
Max Stewart (-90kg) and Philip Awiti-Alcaraz (-100kg) will be in action on the third and final day of the Qingdao Grand Prix on Sunday 20 November. There will be live coverage of the final block from 0900 UK time on ippon.tv and you can follow @BritishJudo on Twitter for updates on British medals and/or placings
