Despite putting up a fantastic fight in the Miami Cadet World Championships, Sarah Hill’s medal hopes were ended in the second round by Mako Enda of Japan, a former silver medallist at this level of competition, as she was held down for ippon.

She had opened the final day of the competition in the first contest of the -70kg category, a yuko up before claiming a sensational ippon over Seraiah Martin of the USA.

Still, GB had much to celebrate in the competition as a whole by walking away with two bronze medals, gained in exceptional style by Peter Miles on the opening day of the competition and Lubjana Piovesana on Saturday night.

Peter Miles’ overcame a tough draw on Thursday to beat home judoka Adonis Diaz by holding down the American for ippon.

His road to this point involved beating Taiki Miyagawa of Japan in golden score after the Japanese was disqualified, throwing Georgia’s Beka Natatralashvili to score waza-ari, yuko and finally ippon, plus a quarter-final with Salim Rebahi of Algeria where the Briton triumphed with one shido to Rebahi’s two.

In a tight semi-final against Elios Manzi of Italy he narrowly lost out on shidos, but bounced back in style to win the bronze-medal match against the American.

Lubjana Piovesana had a super Saturday when her final fight saw her take victory with an ippon inside 46 seconds. She opened with an attack against Liudmyla Drozdova of Ukraine, without a score, but then replicated the same advance to throw her opponent for ippon in under a minute.

This compensated her narrow semi-final defeat in the dying seconds against top seed Szabina Cercsak of Hungary, who claimed ippon during golden score.

It came off the back of three ippons in a row, as Piovesana beat South African Kirsten Chananie, holding her down for ippon, then scoring another ippon Brigette Carabali of Colombia. This set her up for a quarter-final with Tea Tintor of Serbia in which Piovesana dominated with a waza-ari and a yuko up before a final strangle-hold for ippon.

Meanwhile, Saturday also saw an early exit for Jodie Caller (-57kg) who went through after Ariel Bezalel of Israel was disqualified after going in for a strangle which hit Caller in the face. The Israeli had been leading by waza-ari and yuko. However, the Briton’s run in the competition ended in the next round, when despite putting up a good fight against Brazilian Gabriela Bitencourt, a yuko in a golden score ended Caller’s challenge.

On Friday, Neil MacDonald also exited early after a waza-ari defeat by a tough first round opponent in Rauf Khalilov of Azerbaijan.

Words by Donna Richardson. Images courtesy of Joe Morgan, Team GB.