COVENTRY judoka Chelsie Giles suffered a second round exit in the women’s -52kg category at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The defending bronze medallist from Tokyo 2020 lost in golden score to Brazil’s Larissa Pimenta.
Giles, seeded fifth, received an opening round bye and picked up two early shidos as the second round contest entered golden score.
The Coventry judoka had to press forward to avoid a third shido as Pimenta countered a Giles attack to register a waza-ari score and win the contest.
Giles said: “I started off a bit slow and picked up two shidos. When it went to golden score I thought I was doing a bit better, but I just got unlucky and got caught on the wrong side.”
British Judo women’s lead coach Jamie Johnson added: “We knew that Pimenta is a very good fighter. Prior to this they had both won one contest each, so it was by no means an easy opening contest.
“We went in with a game plan to control the grip, going two shidos down so early in the contest meant we had to adapt as we could not make any more mistakes.
“Going into golden score Chelsie picked it up but was unfortunate to get caught.
“It’s a tough result to take, Chelsie is the ultimate professional in her day-to-day training and preparation and the overall feeling at the moment is disappointment.”
