Sydnee Andrews spent 36 years of New Zealand judo history on the mat in Glasgow and ended it in two and a half minutes. The 23-year-old from Gisborne beat Cameroon’s Richelle Soppi Mbella by ippon, the instant-win score that stops a judo contest dead, to take the women’s over 78 kilogram title at the Commonwealth Games and become the first New Zealand woman ever to win a Commonwealth judo gold.
The final lasted two minutes and 33 seconds. It was the third time in a single day that Andrews had ended a contest early, having also thrown Mauritius’s Marie Durhone in the quarter-final and Gabon’s Marthe Gnacadja Avaro in the semi. Three fights, three ippons, no contest decided on penalties or points. It is about as emphatic as a judo campaign gets.
Andrews told RNZ that she was not sure the winning throw had scored, and pinned her opponent to the mat rather than risk it. “I thought I threw her for the full score so that’s why I got up but then I don’t know if I heard anyone say anything and so I just had an instinct to get back on top of her because I felt something was wrong and nothing was actually scored,” she said. “Just the emotions and I was really holding her down because I wasn’t going to risk her getting out of it… it was unreal.”
She was equally clear about where the medal came from. “Honestly we did so much work behind the scenes to get to where we are now,” she said.
The last New Zealander to win a Commonwealth judo title was Brent Cooper, who took the half-lightweight gold in Auckland in 1990, six years before Andrews was born. Judo is not a core Commonwealth Games sport and comes and goes from the programme depending on what the host city chooses, which is part of the reason the gap has been so long. Glasgow put 14 judo events on this year’s schedule, and New Zealand made two of them count.
Kody Andrews, a long-time teammate of no relation, won bronze in the men’s over 100 kilogram division with a yuko score against Scotland’s Gregor Miller. Matthew Rowley went out in the men’s under 100 kilogram repechage to Cyprus’s Aristos Michael. Two medals from a small judo squad is a strong return for a sport that gets a fraction of the money and attention that rugby, netball or cycling attract in New Zealand.
Andrews learned the sport at the Gisborne Judo Club under coach Jason King and has been based at the Camberley club in Surrey for the past four years, training full time. The High Performance Sport New Zealand support that lets her live and train offshore comes through its Tailored Athlete Pathway Support programme, and in the year before Glasgow her world ranking climbed from the 50s into the top 20. That rise made her the highest-ranked Commonwealth athlete in her weight class, which earned her a bye straight into the quarter-finals in Glasgow.
Judo New Zealand national technical director Zane Lightfoot said earlier this year that the backing had done more than build a competitor. “HPSNZ’s support has allowed her to grow not only as an athlete but as a young woman learning to run her own campaign,” he said.
The gold also settles a piece of unfinished business. Andrews won bronze at Birmingham four years ago and made no secret afterwards of what she wanted next. She was a late addition to the Glasgow team after proving her fitness following an injury earlier in the year, and she went into the Games saying plainly what she was there for. “I say it quite boldly and openly how badly I want to get that gold. I’ve got the hunger for it,” she told the New Zealand Olympic Committee before the final.
Speaking to her home town paper, the Gisborne Herald, in the days before she competed, she was blunter still. “I’m ready. A few months ago I had an injury, so I was so determined to get back on the mat, rehab it, because I want that gold,” she said. She also had a word for the people watching from home. “I absolutely love the support you guys give me. I truly am proud to come from Gizzy.”
Andrews became New Zealand’s tenth gold medallist of the Games, and the timing could hardly have been better. Glasgow 2026 ran from 23 July to 2 August, a deliberately trimmed Games of 10 sports and about 2,729 athletes from 74 Commonwealth teams, built quickly after Victoria walked away from hosting. New Zealand finished sixth on the medal table with 10 gold, 14 silver and 12 bronze for a total of 36, behind Australia, England, Canada, India and Scotland.
That tally came out of a narrow programme. With only 10 sports on offer, New Zealand had far fewer places to hunt medals than at Birmingham, where the schedule was more than twice the size. Track cycling, athletics, weightlifting, bowls and netball did most of the heavy lifting, and the judo medals were a bonus from a sport that only occasionally gets a Commonwealth stage at all.
The team’s last act was to name pole vaulter Eliza McCartney as flag bearer for the closing ceremony, after she beat reigning Olympic champion Nina Kennedy to gold. Chef de mission Nigel Avery said McCartney “embodies the traits we value in the New Zealand Team”, adding that “she has shown incredible resilience, competes with courage, carries herself with humility and has the respect of her teammates and competitors alike”, 1News reported.
For Andrews, the next target is a bigger one. Judo has been on every Olympic programme since 1964 and the world ranking she has spent the past year climbing is the currency that gets athletes to Los Angeles in 2028. A Commonwealth title does not qualify anyone for an Olympics, but it does confirm what the ranking has been suggesting, which is that a heavyweight from Gisborne training in a club in Surrey can throw the best in the Commonwealth and do it three times in an afternoon.
What did you make of New Zealand’s Glasgow campaign, and should judo get more support at home after this result? Leave a comment below and let us know.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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