Lucy Renshall (-63kg) took home a well deserved bronze medal at the 2015 Junior World Championships in Abu Dhabi on Sunday 25 October while teammate Lubjana Piovesana (-63kg) finished in fifth

Renshall went in as top seed and produced a big throw in her opening match with Ching Hsiao Lin (TPE) to book a spot in the quarter-finals where she faced Tunisia’s Meriem Bjaoui. The contest went into golden score as neither judoka could get more than a shido and Renshall superior offence saw her take the contest as Bjaoui conceded another shido.

Renshall faced Diana Dzhigaros (RUS) in the semi-final and after controlling the majority of the contest, the British judoka got held down with a minute to go and went into the bronze medal contest. This set-up a rematch with Elisavet Teltsidou (GRE), who Renshall had beaten for European gold earlier this year. Yet again it proved a tight affair with the Greek competitor going ahead by yuko before Renshall’s produced a waza-ari to take the lead and held off a late surge to take bronze.

Speaking afterwards Renshall said: “It feels so good! I’m devastated about my semi-final as I really think I was in control of the fight and I thought I could win it but I just got caught in newaza but I’ll happily settle for the bronze. I’m really made up!” 

Junior Lead Coach Jamie Johnson was pleased with how Renshall came back from her semi-final defeat:

“Lucy fought very well. In the semi-finals Lucy was very confident and was winning but then just fell into a bad position getting held for ippon. The bronze was a rematch of the European final and Lucy went down a yuko but showed great character and pulled another big o-uchi out to score waza-ari and win bronze.”

Lubjana Piovesana almost joined her on the podium as she finished fifth after coming through some very tough contests. The British judoka got off to a good start beating Aimi Nouchi (JPN) in the first round before a yuko proved enough in the second round to beat Kiyomi Watanabe (PHI). Piovesana faced Dzhigaros (RUS) in the quarter-finals and missed out on a possible semi-final with Renshall by shido after having a yuko score overturned.

Piovesana recovered well to see off Bjaoui (TUN) in the repechage which set-up a bronze medal match with Germany’s Lara Reimann and the British competitor was held down with over two minutes to go and missed out on a bronze medal.

Piovesana was disappointed to miss out on a medal but was happy with her performance overall:

“I had a good day especially after having a tough draw. My performance was good, just disappointing not to have a medal at the end of it! I’m looking forward to going into next year as it will be my second as a junior and I’ll use the experience from this year to push me on.”

Matt Purssey, Centre of Excellence coach, said: “Lubjana performed very well today beating one of the favourites from Japan in the first round and was very unlucky to lose the quarter-final after receiving a shido and having a yuko score overturned.”

Stuart McWatt (-81kg) lost to Dominik Druzeta (CRO) in the second round after being thrown for ippon in the last ten seconds of their contest