African judoka delivered a brilliant performance throughout the morning. Botswana’a Botho Babutsi (-48 kg) and Tumiso Phuthego (-60 kg), Kenya’s Regan Wali (-60 kg), Cameroon’s Marie Celine Baba Matia (-52 kg), Mauritius’ Marie Begue (-57 kg), South Africa’s Donna Breytenbach (-57 kg), Nigeria’s Michael Agbo (-66 kg) and Ghana’s 17 year old sensation Frema Agyei (-57 kg) were all set to fight for bronze medals.
India have arrived in Scotland with a very strong team, an excellent representative for Asia; many of the team already compete regularly on the World Judo Tour. Harsh Singh’s explosive style took him all the way to the -60 kg final. His semi-final against Pedro Carlos Antun Neto (AUS) put him under some pressure but a lightning fast seoi-otoshi put space between them and ultimately sent him to the final. Asmita Dey (-48 kg) and Yamini Mourya (-57 kg) mirrored his result in the morning session by reaching their respective finals; dominant performances all round.
Canada also put judoka in 3 finals: Evelyn Beaton, Julien Frascadore and Heidi Quach. The third nation on the list was Cyprus. Their team arrived with three athletes for day one and all 3 made it to the final block; Balarjashvili and Asvesta went all the way to their respective finals, -66 kg and -52 kg, while Christodoulides was set to fight for -66 kg bronze.
This meant that the top three countries on the leaderboard, in terms of the number of finalists, could not be more diverse: one from Asia, one from Europe and one from Pan-America. The final block was going to be exciting and perhaps unpredictable too!