Paris Olympic Qualification to get underway in Mongolia

With those magical Tokyo memories now 10 months old, judo now turns its attention to the 2024 Games in Paris as qualification for the XXXIII (33^rd) Olympiad commences this weekend as the IJF World Tour heads to Mongolia for the Ulaanbaatar Grand Slam.

6 GB Judoka will compete; looking to get their Paris Olympic qualification campaign off to a strong start in the Mongolian capital city.

Friday 24^th

Lele Nairne will be the sole GB Judo competitor on the opening day. The -57kg judoka and 2018 European U23 Championship silver medallist will face 4^th seed Enkhriilen Lkhagvatogoo (MGL), who won bronze at the Paris Grand Slam earlier this year, in her opening round contest.

Saturday 25^th

Abu Dhabi Grand Slam bronze medallist Lachlan Moorhead competes for the first time since the European Championships in Sofia. Moorhead has been drawn against Bekadil Shaimerdenov (KAZ) in Round 1.

Competing in the -73kg category is Daniel Powell who will face Ylham Kemalov (TKM) in the opening round.

Sunday 26^th

Rhys Thompson makes his second career Grand Slam appearance alongside Harry Lovell-Hewitt, who competes for the first time since March, in the -100kg category.

Thompson, who recently joined the British Judo National Training Centre as a full-time athlete, will face 3x Grand Slam gold medallist, Kentaro Iida (JPN) in Round 2, following an opening-round bye.

Lovell-Hewitt will face Nyamkhuu Darikhuu (MGL) in the opening round.

Dubrovnik European Cup gold medallist, Jamal Petgrave has been drawn against Puntsagtseren Ganbaatar (MGL) in the opening round of the -90kg category.

Elsewhere this weekend, a small team from Bradley Stoke Judo Club have travelled to Bosnia and Herzegovina for the Banja Luka Junior European Cup. Ethan Nairne will compete in the -73kg category, whilst Ryan Rijksen-Salman fights in the -90kg category. Nairne, who competes on Saturday, enters at 5^thseed whilst Rijksen-Salman, who fights on Sunday, is seeded 7^th.

Preliminary round action in Mongolia will start at 5:30 am (BST) on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Final Block is scheduled to commence at 10:00 (BST) on each day.

Action in Bosnia will start at 8:00 am (BST) on both Saturday and Sunday.

You can watch all the action from the Ulaanbaatar Grand Slam LIVE on the British Judo Competition Hub page each day.