Natalie Powell ended her 2018 campaign on a high with a bronze medal at the Guangzhou Masters in China.
The Beulah-born judoka avenged her defeat to France’s Madeleine Malonga at the European Championships to claim the third Maters medal of her career.
Powell, who won silver in 2015 and bronze in 2016, also picked up vital rankings and qualifications points that will count towards the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
“This year has been a bit of a roller coaster, so I’m really happy it all came together,” said the 28-year-old after beating the European Champion on Sunday.
“I feel like my judo has improved a lot over the last 12 months and the results are coming together now. I can’t wait to get stuck into next year”
Powell and Malonga had faced each other nine times going into the medal bout with the British fighter holding a 5 – 4 lead in their head to head.
However, world ranked No 5 Malonga had won their most recent encounter at the European Championships in April this year and is one of the in-form judoka of 2018.
Powell put in a superb tactical performance as she controlled the powerful Malonga and didn’t allow the Frenchwoman to dominate.
And with just over two minutes gone, Powell threw Malonga for ippon with a big ura-nage to secure the bronze and 900 World ranking and Olympic qualification points.
Powell started her day against Russia’s Anastasiya Dmitrieva (RUS) and it proved to be a tough and physical contest. Wales’ 2014 Commonwealth Games champ took the win in the dying seconds as she threw the Russian for waza-ari.
This setup a quarter-final against Japan’s current World Champion Shori Hamada. Powell had lost each of their three contests leading into today and once against Hamada proved too strong.
She threw Powell for waza-ari before going straight into the hold down to win the contest.
This dropped the Irfon judoka into the repechage final where she faced the dangerous Kaliema Antomarchi of Cuba.
The Cuban judoka had won bronze at last year’s World Judo Championships, but Powell put in a controlled performance.
Powell bided her time and took her chance to drive Antomarchi to ground for ippon, setting up her bronze medal contest against Malonga.