Team Bath Judo siblings Ben and Megan Fletcher won gold and silver respectively during an excellent weekend of competition at the Marrakech Grand Prix in Morocco.
MJ Church Ambassador Ben’s victory in the men’s -100kg category secured the second Grand Prix title of his career and moved him up to 11th in the world rankings.
He fought brilliantly throughout the tournament, overcoming Poland’s Dominik Majowski, Romania’s Luca Kunszabo and Aibek Serikayev of Kazakhstan on his way to the semi-finals.
Victory over Estonia’s Grigori Minaskin set up a title showdown with Toma Nikiforov of Belgium, which Ben – coached by Juergen Klinger at the University of Bath Sports Training Village – won with a waza-ari to clinch a second Grand Prix medal of 2019.
That success came a day after sister Megan had reached her first-ever Grand Prix final, where she was only denied the women’s -70kg gold by France’s Margaux Pinot.
Commonwealth champion Megan had fought superbly to progress through the tournament, defeating Israel’s Yarden Mayersohn, Hilde Jager of the Netherlands, Germany’s Sarah Maekelburg and, in the semi-final, Australia’s Aoife Coughlan.
The silver medal was a step-up from the bronze she won in Tel Aviv in January and moved Megan – who, like Ben, represents Ireland on the international stage – up to 25th in the world as the qualification period for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games continues.
Find out more about the judo programme at the University of Bath by visiting www.teambath.com/judo.
Courtesy of Team Bath Press Office at Matchtight Ltd.
