Two to three medals was the target for the British Judo Junior team on the first day of the Junior European Championships in Oberwart, Austria. By the end of the day the team were able to celebrate a seventh and a fifth place in addition to a silver and a bronze medal.

In the -48kg category Kelly STADDON defeated Katharina TANZER (AUT) by a shido in her first fight before suffering a reverse after the contest against Joana DIOGO (POR). This gave her the opportunity to fight for bronze through the repechage but defeat at the hands of Daria BOBRIKOVA (RUS) left her in seventh place.

Number two seeded in the -57kg category, Bekky LIVESEY was hoping to be free of the issues that had plagued her in previous years leading up to the Junior Europeans.

“Bekky was constantly injured in the previous years just before the Europeans. This is her last year as a Junior so to end it with a medal winning performance is great”, said Centre of Excellence Coach, Jamie Johnson.

The British fighter first overcame Manja KROPF (SLO) by ippon before taking out Adi GROSSMAN (ISR) by waza-ari. At both occasions she scored with a left-sided ouchi-gari. Following that, it was time for the semi-final against Stefania Adelina DOBRE (ROU), who not only defeated Livesey but fought her way to the top of the podium.

The match up for the bronze medal saw Mariia SKORA (UKR) face the Brit judoka. “I had no idea who she was, she felt strong but from the first exchange I felt that I can beat her”, explained Livesey after her winning contest. “The target was to place today, so going home with a medal is really amazing. I am really happy”, she added.

The highlight of the day was Samuel HALL’s performance in the -60kg category, where Neil MACDONALD was also on stage. Both players were on top of their game and it was not until up to the quarter-finals that they had to be set apart. Denis VIERU (MDA) defeated McDonald to put him in the repechage. Shortly after it was pay-back for the British team when Hall stunned Vieru for Ippon to book his spot in the final. Meantime, MacDonald bounced back to fight for bronze, where he met Tornike NAGLIASHVILI (GEO). The Georgian pulled out a strong attack and left MacDonald to finish in fifth place.

In the final of the -60kg division Hall faced Walide KHYAR (FRA). Just over a month ago in the semi-final of the Junior European Cup in Berlin, Khyar came out on top of their contest. Hall put in a strong performance but it was the Frenchman who came out on top again.

“A medal was expected from me and we knew that the final against Khyar was always going to be difficult. It was a situation of right vs right, which we practiced a lot during the preparation and we knew that the gripping will be important in this contest. He managed to control the right side slightly better than me and I got caught”, Hall expressed his thoughts after the final.

“The target was two to three medals today and we come away with two medals and a fifth place. Neil is a first year junior so I think finishing fifth place is a good start. Sam is in his last year and he had been working hard. We been working on a lot of different scenarios during the preparation and the hard work now paid off”, concluded Johnson after today’s action.

Jodie CALLER (-57kg) and Chelsie GILES (-52kg) both lost out in hard fought opening contests while Eric HAM (-73kg) was defeated in his second contest of the day, losing out on golden point after a tiring encounter.

The second day of the tournament will begin at 09:00 (GMT).

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