Great Britain took gold, a silver and three bronzes at the European Open for women in Rome.

Sarah Adlington (+78kg) triumphed in the heavyweight category, while Megan Fletcher (-70kg) swept to silver success.

Adlington won both her matches against two Italian judoka, Elisa Marchio and Taniya Ferrera, on shidos to secure gold in the heavyweight category.

Fletcher fought Anne-Kathrin Lisewski of Germany in her first match where she triumphed with a hold-down for ippon. She then beat Jennifer Pitzanti of Italy by yuko before pulling another ippon out of the bag against Belgian Roxanne Taeymans. She was narrowly beaten to the gold by Maya Thoyer of France who scored a single yuko.

“I feel mixed emotions,” Fletcher said after the event. “I am disappointed that I lost the final after I made a silly mistake which cost me a yuko that I never recovered from.

“I felt really good though to come away with a silver which is the next best thing to gold.”

Meanwhile, Kelly Edwards (-52kg), Gemma Howell (-63kg) and Connie Ramsay (-57kg) all won bronze at the one day event.

Two of the three bronze medallists had an Olympic link. Olympian Gemma Howell achieved a bronze medal in her first international event back after an injury to her knee which she underwent keyhole surgery to repair.

Howell beat Laura Salles of Andorra by ippon and then went on to win the match after Spaniard Palao Puche was penalised for hansoku-make with the result being ippon to Howell.

She then lost by waza-ari over Tina Trstenjak of Slovenia and went on to narrowly miss out on gold in the finals against Maelle Di Cintio of France on penalties.

Meanwhile on her road to bronze, Kelly Edwards lost out to Olympic bronze medallist Rosalba Forciniti of Italy by two waza-aris for ippon but she beat another home judoka in the shape of Fabiola Pidroni.

Howell said: “It feels great to be back on the mat in an international competition. I am frustrated that I conceded in the semi-finals and the final, as I feel I could have done better, but it’s not bad for a first international back.”

Connie Ramsay was the third judoka who fought her way to a bronze medal by beating Monica Lacorossi of Italy by one shido and then losing by ippon against Ivelina Ilieva of Bulgaria – who to add insult to injury was already a waza-ari and a yuko up.

She bounced back for bronze after beating Cindy Huber of France with an ippon, before which point the girls were equally matched with yukos.

Faith Pitman, Sarah Clark and Caroline Kinnane all finished seventh meaning that all eight of the women in Rome placed and medalled.

Kate Howey said: “It was a really great performance today. Although we only took eight judoka out to Rome, five have medalled and the remainder placed so it is fantastic.

“It is great to see Gemma Howell back on the mat again in international competition and each and every one of them fought well and hard and that will not be unnoticed when it comes around to selections for the Asian Tour.”

Words by Donna Richardson.
Photos by Emanuele Di Feliciantonio.