Varey finishes 7th on the opening day of the Antalya Grand Slam

Gregg Varey had the performance of his career on his Grand Slam debut, finishing 7^th at the Antalya Grand Slam.

Varey was the only British fighter in action on the opening day, competing in the -66kg competition, with his last competition being in January 2020 at the Tel Aviv Grand Prix.

Dawn in Pool A, Varey defeated Talha Buyukeser (TUR) in the opening round and 5x African Championship medallist Imad Bassou (MAR) in Round 2. Bassou was awarded an ippon early in the contest, which was subsequently waived off, before Varey scored an ippon of his own to take the contest.

Varey then defeated Julien Frascadore (CAN) in Round 3, again by ippon score, to set up a quarter-final contest against 2x World Champion Hifumi Abe (JPN).

An ippon from Abe in the opening exchanges was enough to see him progress to the semi-finals and see Varey have to fight for a place in the bronze medal match by way of the Repechage.

Unfortunately, a head injury sustained following the heavy landing in the quarter-final meant Varey was withdrawn, as a precautionary measure by the British Judo team, from the Repechage contest.

Tomorrow sees four British Judo fighters in action: Lucy Renshall competes in the -63kg category whilst Gemma Howell and Kelly Petersen-Pollard compete in the -70kg category. For the men, Eric Ham competes in the -73kg category.

Action on Friday starts at 08:45am (BST) with Final Block scheduled to commence at 15:00. British Judo will bring you a recap of how all your British fighters perform each day and you can follow the action on the British Judo social media channels. You can also watch the action live on the British Judo homepage.