Mixed emotions for Howell
University of Bath alumna Gemma Howell admitted she had mixed emotions after winning a hardfought silver for Team England in the women’s -63kg weight division at Coventry Arena on Tuesday.
Double Olympian Howell, who trained with Team Bath Judo from 2012-2017 while studying sports and exercise science, overcame Jasmine Hacker-jones of Wales in the quarter-finals before defeating Australia’s Katharina Haecker to secure her place in the gold-medal match.
Tokyo Olympic medallist Catherine Beauchemin-pinard provided the opposition and there was very little between the two judoka as a closely fought final went to golden score. Howell was the more aggressive fighter but, after nearly three minutes of additional time, was caught in an armlock and had to tap out.
Injuries prevented Howell competing when judo was last contested in the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow 2014 and have plagued her career but she won the European Championships in April and said she was proud of her achievements this year – although frustrated at just missing out on gold.
“If you had asked me about a silver at the start of the day I would have been over the moon but that final was so close,” she told BBC Sport.
“I could have had it and that makes it even more frustrating. Give me a few hours, though, and I’ll be really happy about it.”
Team Bath’s Rhys Thompson competed in the men’s -100kg division yesterday. Earlier, Team Bath judo development manager Gregg Varey made his Commonwealth Games debut for Wales and beat Ghana’s Bismark Vartey in just over two minutes in the -66kg division. He faced Scotland’s Alex Short in the quarter final where Varey was beaten by Ippon.
Elsewhere, defending netball champions England secured a semi-final spot after a 56-35 victory over Uganda guaranteed a top-two finish in Group B.
Layla Guscoth started and there were further impactful appearances from the bench by fellow Team Bath Netball Superleague stars Imogen Allison and Sophie Drakeford-lewis as England set up a group decider against World Champions New Zealand today.
The first match of the day had seen Blue & Gold attacker Betsy Creak convert all 11 of her shots as Wales were beaten 79-33 by goldmedal contenders Australia.
Drakeford-lewis had made her first Commonwealth Games start against Northern Ireland in their 71-27 victory. She played wingattack in the first quarter before moving to her more familiar goal attack and converted 11 of her 12 shots. Allison played 45 minutes, as did Blue & Gold legend Stacey Francis-bayman, while Guscoth came on in the second half.
Against Malawi, England won 66-41 with Guscoth starting and Allison and Drakeford-lewis coming off the bench – this came after their 74-22 win over Trinidad and Tobago on Friday.
Phumza Maweni’s South Africa lost 74-49 against Australia in the other group, having beaten Barbados 91-36 and lost to Jamaica. Creak enjoyed 12 goals during Wales’ 48-42 win over Scotland, who had earlier lost to Jamaica 72-43.
University of Bath sports management and coaching student Grace Crompton scored two second-half tries to help England beat Scotland 29-5 at Coventry Stadium to secure fifth place overall in the women’s rugby 7s competition.
Bristol Bears player Crompton – supported by the Team Bath Dual Career programme – was joined in the England squad by integrated mechanical and electrical engineering alumna Amy Wilson Hardy.
They had lost 38-7 to defending champions New Zealand before beating South Africa 36-0 in the 5-8 semi final. In the pool games, England beat Sri Lanka 57-0 before losing 26-19 to Canada.
The opening night of track and field action at the Alexander Stadium on Tuesday saw sports performance graduate Alastair Chalmers, hoping to win Guernsey’s first-ever Commonwealth athletics medal, book his place in Saturday’s 400m hurdles final by placing fourth in his heat in 50.39.
His brother Cameron, who also studied sports performance at the university, began his 400m campaign a yesterday.