Natalie Powell Bags Bronze For Third European Judo Championships In A Row

Natalie Powell made it a hat-trick of European Championships bronze medals to help British Judo to its best medal tally for 20 years.

The 27-year-old from Beulah matched her medal winning feats from 2016 and last year in the -78kg category in Tel Aviv.

Powell’s bronze saw GB finish with five medals in total, its biggest medal haul at a European Judo Championship since 1998.

Going in as top seed with her world No 3 ranking, Powell faced Evelin Salanki in the first round.

The Hungarian made the more dynamic start but the Irfon judoka took her chances well to counter two of Salanki’s throws for waza-ari.

Moving into the quarter-finals Powell faced off against Anna Maria Wagner of Germany. The eighth seed went ahead in the opening minute as she rolled Powell for waza-ari.

But Powell responded well to that early setback though as she immediately went on the attack. The pressure eventually told as she threw Wagner for waza-ari to level things up on the scoreboard.

The contest always felt like it would finish before time and that proved to be the case as with just over a minute to go Powell countered Wagner’s attack and went straight into osaekomi to finish the fight.

French judoka Madeleine Malonga was next up in the semi-finals and the former world No 1 never had a chance to get into the contest.

Malonga immediately took a dominant grip and threw Powell for waza-ari and went straight into osaekomi to complete the win.

This dropped Powell into the bronze medal contest against Portugal’s Yahima Ramirez.

Powell had never lost to her Portuguese opponent and it proved to be a very tactical contest.

After an early scare Powell consistently got the better of the gripping exchanges and her power and stamina told as she forced Ramirez to pick up three shidos.