What was the most memorable moment in Rio?
When Ilias Iliadis of Greece was thrown for ippon in his opening contest against Cheng Xunzhao of China, that was a shocker and thus memorable in a way. But I regret it because it meant Iliadis was out. I love shooting pictures of Iliadis because he does such big throws. I didn’t get a chance to do that in Rio because he exited so early. But the most memorable sequence of photos I took in Rio has to be when my fellow Brit, Sally Conway, somehow managed to escape from behing held-down by
triple World Champion Gevrise Emane of France. When that happened, I thought for sure it was over for Sally. But she never gave up and eventually managed to not only escape but to turn Emane onto her back and pin her for ippon. What an amazing reversal of fortune that was. It was an escape act that would have made Houdini proud. I have to say, in more than 40 years of photographing top-level competition judo I cannot remember a more exciting newaza contest. And not one of my pictures was out of focus!
David Finch & Thierry Rey were given the 2011 Judo Media Award by the International Sports Press Association for their contribution to the sport.
Sally Conway doing the Houdini act, escaping from an inescapable situation.