Day one (Friday 30 June) at the 2017 European Cadet Judo Championships in Kaunas, Lithuania saw Amy Platten (-44kg) and Yasmin Javadian (-52kg) just miss out on the medals with both judoka finishing in fifth place.
Platten and Javadian were going into this year’s Championships in good form with five Cadet European Cup medals between them in 2016. They backed up their rankings with some impressive judo throughout the day.
Redbridge judoka Platten made a solid start as she saw off the challenge of France’s Coralie Gilly by waza-ari in her opening contest. Ana Viktorija Puljiz (CRO) was next up in the quarter-finals and the Croatian judoka was just too good scoring three waza-ari to force Platten into the repechage.
There she showed her ability to throw for ippon in consecutive contests as she first put in a superb counter against Ozge Andic (TUR) before a lovely foot sweep against Timea Kardos (HUN) secured her place in the bronze medal match.
There she faced Liza Gateau (FRA) and on this occasion it was a contest too far as the French judoka scored three waza-ari to take the bronze medal.
Coventry’s Javadian had placed at the last two Cadet European Championships and was looking to go one better than her fifth in 2015. The British Cadet champion made a good start as a waza-ari proved enough to see off the challenge of Mariami Mazanashvili (GEO).
She followed that up in the quarter-finals against Faiza Mokdar (FRA) in a hard fought win which went down to golden score. Javadian was able to force her French opponent into picking up a second shido which gave her the contest.
No.1 Seed Gefen Primo (ISR) was next up in the semi-finals and Javadian put in arguably her best performance of the day against the Israeli judoka. Both fighters were looking to score and had their chances but the contest went into golden score.
After two minutes and 44 seconds of golden score however it was the British judoka who received the decisive second shido which meant that she would fight for bronze.
Her bronze medal contest against Annika Wuerfel (GER) was another golden score thriller with the German judoka doing enough to force Javadian to pick up one shido in regular time. However with no scores on the board it was down to golden score once again.
This time though Javadian was thrown for waza-ari in the first exchange and missed out on bronze.
No GB judoka placed on Day One in Kaunas though a number lost out in close contests. Caitlin Barber (-52kg) and Oliver Park (-60kg) won their first contests against Paz Kafri (ISR) and Lukas Volfsonas (LTH) respectively.
Barber lost her Last 16 contest to Frederica Silveri (ITA) as she was forced to tap out from a strangle while Park lost in golden score to Romania’s Szilard Radvanszki, also in the Last 16.
Imogen Walls (-48kg), Daniel Rabbitt (-55kg) and Archie Platt (-66kg) were unable to make it through their opening contests, with each judoka losing out by waza-ari.
Day two of the 2017 Cadet European Judo Championships will see Darcie Hancocks (-57kg), Josie Steele (-57kg), Holly Jones (-63kg), Emily Cooper (-63kg), Lachlan Moorhead (-73kg), Aaron Miller (-81kg) and Lewis Widdicombe (-81kg) in action.
Competition starts at 0730 UK time with live coverage via EJU.net. You can follow @BritishJudo on Twitter for competition updates and ippon.org for the full draw.