Camberley´s Karina Bryant stormed back onto the world judo scene yesterday winning a silver medal at the World Judo Championships Rotterdam. The over 78kg fighter won GBR´s only medal of the championships on the final day of competition. Bryant received a bye into the second round and then faced Olympic bronze medallist Lucija Polavder of Slovenia. Karina dominated the match throwing the Slovenia and also forcing two penalty points. Her quarter final match up was against Mexico´s Vanessa
Zambotti who defeated Karina at last year´s Olympic Games. Revenge was sweet and Karina defeated the Mexican easily with four penalty points. This moved her into the semi final match versus Franziska Konitz of Germany. In one of the best fights of the tournament both fighters battled for the full five minutes with the score equal. This sent the match into a “golden score” period where any score would end the match. Karina produced a stunning hip throw for the maximum score to end the match and silence the fanatical german supporters in the packed stadium. In the final she faced reigning World and Olympic champion Wen Tong of China. Although putting up a brave effort Karina could not stop the powerful Chinese fighter and had to settle for the silver medal. Unbelievably this is Karina´s seventh world medal a brilliant achievement for her and the club.
