Hall in action on opening day of World Championships

Sam Hall (Club: Ryecroft; Coach: Fitzroy Davies) was the sole GB judoka in action on the opening day of the IJF World Championships in Tashkent.

Competing for the first time since winning Commonwealth Games silver in Birmingham, Hall defeated Allan Kuwabara (BRA) in his opening contest in Pool A. Hall registered a waza-ari score early in the contest before some great newaza to book his place in Round 2 to face number one seed and current Olympic silver medallist, Yung-Wei Yang (TPE).

Hall exploded out the blocks and registered a waza-ari score in the opening 30-seconds to lead the contest. Yang evened the score at the midway point before transitioning into osaekomi to pin Hall and progress to Round 3.

The defeat saw Hall exit the competition, but the Sheffield judoka gave a great account of himself on his senior World Championship debut and will earn 200 world ranking points towards his Paris Olympic qualification.

Tomorrow sees Chelsie Giles (Coventry JC; Simon Moss) looking to add a World Championship medal to the European gold and Olympic bronze medals she currently holds.

Giles enters as 3^rd seed and will face Liping Liu (CHN) in round two, following an opening round bye.

Friday’s action gets underway at 6:30 am (BST) and you can watch it all unfold LIVE here – live.ijf.org

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