Judo: Howey a natural born fighter

England's leading judo player had to battle for her chance to complete her medal set while the rugby men enter new world

As you would expect after a lifetime in judo, Kate Howey has been thrown a few times. But no ippon seoi-nage had the same shuddering impact as the news that she had been left out of the England judo team for the Commonwealth Games. "I was distraught," she said. "I simply could not believe it."

Her omission was as deeply controversial as that of Sebastian Coe's from the 1988 Olympics. But she had better luck than the double track gold medal winner, although her subsequent reinstatement caused an even bigger contretemps.

The women's team coach, Winn Bolton, resigned after the 29-year-old Howey was – on appeal – given her place back at the expense of a girl nine years her junior, Samantha Lowe, to whom she had lost in the British Open Championships in April because of a broken wrist which capped an injury-hit year.

Howey and her personal coach, Roy Inman, took the case to the Sports Disputes Resolution Panel, who, after an eight-hour hearing chaired by Bernard Weatherall QC, made it clear to the selectors that they should think again, because Howey was the more likely to win a medal in Manchester. They did, and Howey, Britain's most successful judo fighter, male or female, was back in, unrepentant and unabashed.

"Yes, of course I felt sorry for Samantha," she said. "Anyone would. But I was winning the fight when I broke my wrist in a fall, and had to retire. It wasn't as if I was beaten fair and square.

"She's only 20. She'll get another chance. I won't. This is my last opportunity to win a Commonwealth Games medal. It is the only one I don't have."

Inman says he had no qualms about resorting to law. "It was a wrong decision to leave Kate out. There was no sinister plot or anything like that. It was just a mistake, one which surprised the whole judo world.

"Kate's track record is second to none and she has a history of coming back from injury to win championships."

The row, and the resentment, still simmers. But Howey has tucked it away at the back of her mind. She is now with the English team at their holding camp in Kendal after winding up her training at the University of Bath, where she is a member of Team Bath's prolific sports squad – some 40 of them will be representing a variety of nations in Man-chester – and an assistant judo coach.

Her wrist remains bandaged but there were no holds barred in the workout she had with her regular male Japanese spar-mate Masaki Hayashi, who is over here for a year from Tokai University. It is indicative of the international esteem in which British judo is currently held that the Japanese, who invented the sport, now send aspirant champions to train here.

Pro rata, judo has been Britain's most successful sport over the years, with 16 medals in eight Olympics, seven of them silver and the rest bronze. In Auckland 12 years ago, when judo was introduced to the Commonwealth Games, England won 14 of the 16 available golds. Inman believes they can win at least nine out of 12 in Manchester.

Medals sit as easily around Howey's neck as the black belt around her waist. She won her first Olympic medal in 1992, a bronze in Barcelona, and a silver in Sydney. She was world champion middle-weight in 1997, a silver medallist in 1993, and has a fistful of European medals. Barely a year has passed in which she has not won a major title. "She is always the one person you can absolutely rely on to get a medal," says Inman,

So it was characteristic that Howey should fight to regain her place. She says she was born blue in the face, with the umbilical cord around her neck, which her mother reckons is the reason she is able to resist the sport's notorious stranglehold. She can lift 150kg on her back, run the 100 metres in under 13 seconds and could probably throw Lennox Lewis across the ring if so inclined.

"When you have an athlete of that outstanding calibre, you have to have a very good argument not to pick her," says Inman. Recently she has taken up boxing training to improve her power, pounding away at the bags and pads. There's a bit of shadow boxing too, though her nifty footwork is painstakingly rehearsed in a routine called uchi-komi, which looks like judo's version of the tango.

But it takes two to tumble, and Howey knows she will have to overcome useful opposition from Canada and her Scottish rival, Mandy Costello, to win Commonwealth gold.

She has been doing judo since she was seven. "My dad was a black belt second dan and I was his groupie. Now he's mine." This is her 15th year of top competition, and she thinks she is probably at her peak now. "The great thing about judo is the buzz you get when you start throwing people, the adrenalin rush. And the winning, of course. I have an appetite for that."

For food, too. Having moved up four kilos when the weights were restructured she does not have poundage problems. "I love chocolate. I eat a Snickers before every fight."

And yes, she's frequently confused with Kate Hoey, the former sports minister, of whom she is a great admirer, as is her coach. It's thanks to Hoey that Howey has somewhere soft to fall in Bath. "When Kate Hoey came down here as minister she looked over the balcony of the squash court where the judo team were training and asked why there was no mat," says Inman. "We explained that the Lottery funding we had applied for months earlier hadn't materialised. 'Don't worry. I'll sort it,' she said. And she did."

Hoey's near-namesake will be doing some sorting herself in Manchester, because there are bound to be ructions and recriminations if, after all this, she doesn't do the business. But sport's fiesty chocaholic remains unfazed. She knows she now has the law in her own hands, and is not one to get her Snickers in a twist.