The last day of the 2015 Zagreb Grand Prix ended with a 7th place earned by Natalie Powell in the u78kg category, leaving the team to finish in the top five on the overall medal table. The great development and incredible effort of our athletes and coaches speaks for itself in comparison to last year’s results.

Powell started off the day by defeating Galeone (ITA) after throwing her for yuko. Moving onto the quarter-finals she was facing double European Champion, Joo (HUN). Powell started off strong and was putting the Hungarian under serious pressure with her gripping structure until she got caught by Joo’s classic left sided harai-makikomi. During the repechage contest Steenhuis (NED) threw first for waza-ari which Powell shortly balanced out. At the end, a single penalty led the Welsh judoka to settle for the 7th place.

Double Olympic medalist, GB elite women performance coach, Kate Howey recaps her overall view of the past three days: “I am pleased and very positive with the direction the players are going. We had some very good performances with the medals and placings throughout the team. We always have things to work on and going forward little changes will be made on decision making and contest management. We have a big phase coming up with the European and World Championships coming up to put these changes in places.”

The men team also put in an incredible effort and “shown some real positives in their progress” – explained GB elite men performance coach, Jean-Paul Bell. “Equally we can make improvements at this level with some of the contest managements and decision making in fights. We have a good mix of experience and youngsters for Rio and beyond and we are looking forward to the intensive qualification and competition block over the next few months.” – he added in agreement to Howey

The task is clear for our elite team, however no time for rest as the majority of them will be heading to compete at the Baku Grand Slam in few days time. Baku will not only offer additional qualification points for Rio 2016, but allows to take the last opportunity to book a spot for the Masters which will take place towards the end of May in Rabat, Morocco.