-70kg: Polleres in a League of Her Own

On the bottom half of the draw, world silver medallist Lara Cvjetko (CRO) appeared to be following Polleres’ lead albeit with a little more resistance. Eriksson (SWE) and Petersen Pollard (GBR) each put up a fight having secured their own early wins but Cvjetko was not ready to hand over the crown. Her semi-final win was against the other Brit in the category, Katie-Jemima Yeats-Brown who was having her own great day until that point.

Yeats-Brown threw Issoufi (FRA) twice with ko-uchi-gari, threw Samardzic (BIH) with sumi-gaeshi and then threw Carvalho (BRA) with a massive sode-tsurikomi-goshi before Cvjetko halted her run. The Brit’s range of techniques and her power make her a nightmare for every opponent but can also lead to mistakes. Today, however, there have not been many of those; a bronze medal could be on the cards.

The first bronze medal was decided between Yeats-Brown and Gercsak, the former coming out hard but being countered for a waza-ari in the first exchange. She looked out of sorts after that and couldn’t get herself back into the rhythm of the contest. With a minute left on the clock she was thrown again, this time with uchi-mata for ippon. Gercsak was confident and perfectly reactive, earning herself a grand slam bronze medal.

The second bronze medal would go to either Petersen Pollard or Pogacnik and let’s not forget how tight the race is between the two British women for the Olympic nomination; they sit at 21 and 22 on the Olympic Ranking List with less than 40 points between them. Neither could afford to drop the ball in the final block and with Yeats-Brown having suffered a loss, the victory would be sizeable in more ways than just the podium finish.

A very determined and confident Petersen Pollard entered the arena, not balking at any challenge from the Slovenian. The result came fairly fast after a seoi-otoshi rolled Pogacnik across her shoulders, ending the contest. The bronze goes to Kelly Petersen Pollard while Pogacnik finishes with valuable points in 5th place.

The final was dominated exactly as Polleres had dominated every other contest of the day. She can throw and she can counter and every movement is executed with commitment. She threw Cvetko twice to end the final well before time, taking Austria’s second gold of the day, closing out the women’s categories.