GB Judo suffered early exits on Day One at the 2018 IBSA Judo World Championships and The Hague Grand Prix on Friday 16 November.
-73kg judoka Evan Molloy was making his Worlds debut out in Odivelas but couldn’t get into the contest against 2015 IBSA World Games bronze medallist Mehdi Meskine (ALG).
Molloy went for a clinch early on but was taken back by Meskine for waza-ari. The Algerian followed that up not long after to throw Molloy for a second waza-ari score.
At The Hague Grand Prix, Ashley McKenzie was stepping on the competition mat for the first time since the World Judo Championships in Baku.
The Camberley fighter made a solid start in the -60kg category as he saw off the challenge of Maxmilian Heyder (GER) with a waza-ari score proving decisive.
In the second round he took on Japan’s Dai Aoki. The Japanese fighter was determined to take the contest into newaza at every opportunity.
McKenzie did well on a number of occasions to defend his opponent’s effort on the ground. The contest went into golden score with the contest standing at two shidos to one in McKenzie’s favour.
Aoki had been given the win during normal time, but it was waved off due to the Japanese fighter stretching the leg in newaza.
Golden score continued in a similar vein with McKenzie looking more dangerous in tachiwaza but Aoki pressing in newaza. Eventually the pressure told, and the Japanese judoka was able to apply juji-gatame and force McKenzie into tapping out.
Chelsie Giles (-52kg) lost a golden score contest to Brazil’s Eleudis Valentim in the second round at -52kg.
Valentim’s greater attack rate was the key difference as the Brazilian consistently beat Giles to the first attack, resulting in three shidos for the British fighter.
Acelya Toprak lost to Israel’s Maayan Greenberg (ISR) in the first round -57kg. There was little to pick between the two going into the final minute with both fighters having picked up a shido for passivity.
With just under a minute left, Greenberg got the better of a tactical exchange to throw Toprak for waza-ari. The Israeli went straight into osaekomi to finish the contest.
At -48kg, Kim Renicks lost out to Maria Siderot (POR). The Portuguese judoka showed her strength in newaza to work into sangaku and hold down Renicks for ippon.
Six British judoka will be in action tomorrow at the 2018 IBSA Judo World Championships: Natalie Greenhough (-70kg), Daniel Powell (-81kg), Elliot Stewart (-90kg), Sam Ingram (-100kg), Chris Skelley (-100kg) and Jack Hodgson (+100kg).
Competition starts at 1000 UK time with live stream via the IBSA Youtube Channel and the IBSA Judo Facebook page. Follow @BritishJudo on Twitter for live updates and find the full draw on ippon.org
Four more British judoka will step on the mat at The Hague Grand Prix: Amy Livesey (-63kg), Alice Schlesinger (-63kg), Sally Conway (-70kg) and Danny Williams (-73kg).
Competition starts at 0900 UK time with a live stream via live.ijf.org. Follow @BritishJudo on Twitter for updates during the day.
