In a field of Olympians and Senior Champions, three Great British judokas, Patrick Dawson, Tom Reed and Megan Fletcher competed at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia, earlier this week.

In his first World University Games, Heriot-Watt’s Patrick Dawson competed in the -73kg category with a strong display but it wasn’t enough for him to win a medal. Comfortably beating his opponents in the first and second round, it was the Serbian Ljubisa Kovacevic, who gave Patrick his first real test. After a good start from Kovacevic, Dawson won by ippon.

In the quarter finals Dawson met French student Jonathan Allardon whose physical strength proved too much, ending his gold medal dreams. After a tight round Dawson edged Sommer’s of Switzerland out to make the repechage quarter-finals.In the final hurdle before the bronze medal match, he went behind by three yuko’s against Yuki Nishigama of Japan and with only 30 seconds left, Nishyama won by ippon.

Speaking about his performance Dawson said: “It was good to have a number of fights at a World Uni Games. I know I can push to medal at this level of tournament so part of me was disappointed not to be fighting in the second block. There are many positives from the experience and I am looking forward now to competing in Moscow Grand Slam.”

Fresh from his gold medal at the Miami Grand Prix, hopes were high for Tom Reed (St. Mary’s University) in the -81kg. However, Russian Murat Khabachirob put an end to his campaign by a penalty (shido) count of 3-2 in his first fight.

He said: “Kazan 2013 has been a good experience in many ways but the competition today was very disappointing. After the fight against the Russian I feel frustrated as I know I was capable of winning, which would have been a good springboard to progress on through the rounds. Though this level of Judo is often won or lost on the smallest of margins. I’ll look back on this as a missed opportunity at a medal, but I will learn a lot from the fight itself and the whole games experience. I’m looking forward to getting back to training towards my next goals”

University of Bristol student Megan Fletcher, started her World University Games,with a strong victory over the Russian Margarita Gurtsieva by ippon before meeting World No 8 Onix Cortes Aldama of Cuba in the second round. Cortes, who won a silver medal in the Miami Grand Prix in June defeated the British Judoka. Fletcher then entered the repechage, where she was beaten by Karen Nun-Ira of Japan by two waza-aris.

“I was really pleased to beat the Russian first round, as she is quite a strong player,” said Fletcher afterwards. “I was disappointed to lose against the Cuban, but feel with small improvements next time I will be able to win as it was quite close. Against the Japanese contestant in the repechage, I made a silly mistake which resulted in a big consequence in newaza resulting in me getting held down for ippon. These are things that I will be able to work on when I get home over the summer and be back strong for the autumn World Cups and Grand Prix.”

Words by Donna Richardson.