Nairne 5th at Dushanbe Grand Prix

On the opening day of the Dushanbe Grand Prix Lele Nairne (Bradley Stoke; Pete Douglas) recorded her best result at a Grand Prix event with a 5^th place finish in the -57kg category.

Following an opening round bye, Nairne topped her Pool with victories against Daria Kurbonmamadova (AIN) and Maya Leopold (ISR) – waza-ari scores enough to see the Brit through on both occasions.

In the semi-final contest against Thauany David Capanni Dias (ITA) Nairne was on the wrong end of a waza-ari score and progressed to the bronze medal contest to face number one seed Veronica Toniolo (ITA).

With nothing between the pair, the contest entered Golden Score with Nairne having been awarded two shidos to Toniolo’s one. The pair were then both awarded further shidos resulting in Nairne having three, meaning victory was handed to the Italian judoka. Nairne finished 5^th, matching her best result on the IJF World Tour.

Following an opening round bye, Acelya Toprak (Metro JC/ Relentless Judo; Darren Hawney/ Fitzroy Davies) defeated Maysa Pardayeva (TKM) in round two before defeat to Qi Cai (CHN) in the quarter finals progressed her to the Repechage, where she faced Toniolo (ITA). A third penalty shido in Golden Score saw Toprak defeated and finish in 7^th place, matching her result from the Austria Grand Prix last week.

Charlie Young (Ryecroft Judokwai; Paul Young) overcame Ramazan Kodzhakov (BRN) and Shahboz Saidaburorov (TJK) in the opening two rounds to secure his place in the quarter-finals. Defeat to Yashar Najafov (AZE) progressed Young to the Repechage where he was defeated by Sunggat Azubatkan (KAZ) to place 7^th – a career high IJF World Tour finish.

Competing alongside Young in the -66kg category was Michael Fryer (Rush Judo; Laurie Rush). Fryer defeated Narmandakh Bayanmunkh (UAE) in the opening round before defeat in round two to Ruslan Pashayev (AZE).

Sam Hall (Ryecroft JC; Fitzroy Davies) made a return from injury to compete in the -60kg category. Hall was defeated in the opening round by Moritz Plafky (GER) by two waza-ari scores.

Competing in the -48kg category, Amy Platten (Redbridge JC; Guy Platten) suffered an opening round defeat to Shuaixia Han (CHN).

Tomorrows action gets underway at 7:30am (BST). You can watch all the action from the Dushanbe Grand Prix LIVE at judotv.com each day.

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