Olympics and Olympic Sports - Conway strikes gold in Belarus

Eurosport - Wed, 14 Oct 16:52:00 2009

Great Britain's Sally Conway captured gold at the judo World Cup in Minsk, Belarus, avenging the disappointment of her fifth-place finish at the World Championships in August.

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The -70kg judoka also produced a disappointing GB World Cup last month, and failed to reach the podium in Birmingham but was back to her best in Belarus, overcoming France's Mylene Chollet, who took gold in Birmingham, in the final, by Waza-ari.

"I'm happy with my performance at the weekend, beating Chollet in the final was a highlight as I had fought her a couple of years ago and lost to her," said Conway, who also overcame Poland's Katarzyna Klys en route to the final.

"I was pleased to fight Klys of Poland as she does well at the tournaments and I haven't had the chance to fight her before Belarus.

"For the next couple of months I am hoping to train and compete in Japan in the Tokyo Grand Slam. I feel it will help me make the improvements I need to become better."

Meanwhile, Sarah Adlington continued her excellence form of late by scooping +78kg gold to follow up her impressive gold medal in Birmingham.

Having overcome Russia's Anaid Mkhitaryan in the semi-final, the Brit squared off against France's Rebecca Ramanich in the final.

Ramanich was forced to settle for bronze at the GB World Cup but captured gold in Minsk by ippon.

Elsewhere, Sarah Clark, Great Britain's third representative in eastern Europe, was forced to settle for seventh in the -63kg category.

The European silver medallist won her first fight against French judoka Virginie Henry, but then lost her second fight against to Ukraine's Svetlana Chepurina.

She went on to face Katsiaryna Prakapenka of Belarus in the repechage. The home crowd cheered Prakapenka on, who threw Clark for ippon.

Great Britain finished fourth overall out of the 15 countries that took part, with France coming first followed by Russia and Ukraine.

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