Prisca Awiti-Alcaraz is an alumnus of Enfield Judo Club and represents Mexico on the international stage

Prisca Awiti-Alcaraz at the Team Bath Sports Training Village dojo

An Enfield-born judoka has won a silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Former Enfield Judo Club regular Prisca Awiti-Alcaraz produced a series of inspired performances to win an incredible judo silver on Tuesday (30th).

Prisca, who represents Mexico through her mother’s heritage, saw off a host of the world’s leading judoka on her way to the final of the women’s -63kg competition in the Champ-de-Mars Arena.

She made a strong start in the gold-medal showdown, taking an early lead through wazi-ari, but Slovenia’s Andreja Leski was able to turn the contest on its head and win gold with ippon.

But it was still an unforgettable day for Prisca, who started her career at Enfield Judo Club, based at the Southgate campus of Barnet and Southgate College. She placed 17^th on her Olympics debut in Tokyo three years ago and her previous best result was a fifth-place finish at the 2023 World Championships.

Prisca also trained at the University of Bath and represented Team Bath on a sporting scholarship.

Adam Hall, high performance judo coach at the University of Bath, said: “What an outstanding performance from Prisca. We’ve always known she had it in her to perform at the very highest level and today was the perfect day to produce that quality and consistency in her performances.

“She has worked so hard for this achievement and all of us here at Team Bath are incredibly proud – congratulations to Prisca, the Mexican Judo federation and Enfield Judo Club where she started this journey.”

Prisca – who was inspired as a young judoka by fellow University of Bath alumna Gemma Gibbons, who famously won silver at London 2012 – began her Paris 2024 competition in confident style, beating Nigara Shaheen of the Olympic Refugee Team by ippon inside 35 seconds of her round of 32 contest.

She then produced one of the performances of her career to beat Poland’s Angelika Szymanska, the World Championships silver-medallist, by waza-ari before recording a golden score victory over Austria’s Lubjana Piovesana – also formerly of Great Britain and ranked number four in the world – in the quarter-finals.

There was a break before the semi-finals but no drop in intensity from Prisca, who dominated her bout against Croatia’s Katarina Kristo and led through waza-ari before sealing victory with ippon.

Prisca studied sports performance at Bath University from 2015 and continued to train in the Team Bath Sports Training Village dojo until her first Olympic appearance at the rescheduled Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021. She was coached by the late Juergen Klinger and Tom Reed before moving to Mexico full-time.

Find out more about the judo programme at the University of Bath:
Visit teambath.com/judo

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