Ebony Drysdale-Daley secured a silver medal for Great Britain at the Junior World Judo Championships yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, writes Aaron Fowler.

The 19 year-old was in impressive form in the preliminary round defeating Nihel Bouchoucha of Tunisia, Jin Hye Jeong of South Korea and Nairelis Fuentes Montoya of Cuba all by ippon, before defeating Mare Eve Gahie of France by waza-ari to reach the final of the women’s -70kg category.

In the final Daley was beaten by Barbara Matic of Croatia by ippon.

Elsewhere Jemima Yeats-Brown, continued her impressive year by winning a bronze medal after defeating fellow Brit, Lucy Renshall in the fight for third place in the women’s -63kg category.

Yeats-Brown defeated Szabina Gercsak of Hungary and Mariem Bjaoui of Tunisia before losing to eventual fellow Bronze medallist Vivian Herrmann of Germany in the preliminary round.

The Brit then defeated Maylin Del Toro Carvajal of Cuba by ippon to set up her fight with Renshall who eventually finished fifth.

Earlier Renshall claimed a fifth place after scoring two successive yuko wins over Bar Farin of Israel and Maja Blagijevic of Croatia. She then took an ippon victory against Danielle Olivera of Brazil but lost by ippon against Nami Nabekura of Japan before meeting Yeats-Brown in the bronze medal match.

In the men’s competition GB’s Sam Hall and Neil MacDonald (-60kg) both reached the quarter-finals.
George Smith exited in the preliminary round of the -90kg category.

Chairman of the Association Kerrith Brown said: “I am very proud of the results at the Junior World Championships and for Ebony and Jemima to both medal and that is testament the hard work and professionalism of the staff, coaches and players at the Centre of Excellence. We are only 10 months into the programme and we have two junior world medals and a European medal. Overall, the girls did exceptionally well with Lucy Rensall getting a fifth, having faced Jemima in the bronze medal match.

“The boys faced some tough draws. Overall it was great to see the whole team engage at the highest level. I spent some time with them ahead of the Junior World Championships, engaging with them at every level. It has been a pleasure to see their hard work pay off and it all bodes really well for 2020.”

Photo courtesy of IJF. By Mario Krvavac.