Triple bronze for Scottish judoka

Three Scottish judoka enjoyed a successful weekend in Asia at the Taipei Asian Open on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 September coming away with three bronze medals against some strong opposition.

David Ferguson (-60kg) was arguably the pick of the bunch winning his first two contests by ippon against Jui Hua Chiu (TPE) and Jaehyeon Kim (KOR). Japan’s Shinji Kido would prove too strong in the semi-final however which dropped the  judoka into the bronze medal contest.

His opponent for bronze was Korea’s Jin-Min Jang, a former two-time Paris Grand Slam medallist, and unsurprisingly it proved to be a very close contest with Ferguson coming out on top thanks to a single yuko.

He was joined on the podium that day by Jack Smith in the -73kg category. Smith made a good start with a solid win over Tseng-Chang Shang (TPE) by ippon before losing his next contest to Eunsong Choi (KOR) by yuko.

Coming through the repechage Junseong Lee (KOR) was seen off on shidos before a high-scoring contest for bronze against Ya Lun Chen (TPE). The Chinese Taipei judoka scored three yukos to Smith’s single waza-ari before the British judoka finished off the contest with an ippon score.

On Sunday Del Imrie took home bronze in the -90kg category starting with an ippon win over Yu Chen Lin (TPE) before losing out to Kyungmo Kim (KOR) which dropped Imrie into the repechage. A single yuko was enough to see off Hao-Wei Chang (TPE) before Chanho Kim (KOR) was beaten for bronze with another win by ippon securing Imrie’s place on the podium.