Great Britain’s men continued the weekend’s medal rush adding two more from Portugal to the impressive haul gathered by the women in Glasgow European Open the day before, writes Donna Richardson.

In total three athletes secured precious ranking points ahead of the Olympic qualification period during the Lisbon European Open in Portugal.

Camberley’s Frazer Chamberlain (-90kg) romped to silver first winning against home judoka Tiago Rodrigues by ippon and then progressing to the semi-finals after his opponent Celio Dias was disqualified for hansoku make.

It was then all-Brit affair as Chamberlain faced Scotsman Andrew Burns and secured an ippon by armlock, having led by a yuko earlier. Burns himself went on to secure bronze against Japan’s Takeshi Sugahara while Chamberlain took silver after beating David Ruiz Zajac of Spain by another ippon.

Chamberlain said: “The Portugal European Open was an important event for me not only was I out to correct my poor performance from last weekend in Estonia but to prove myself as a medal contender at -90kg at this level. It was my first European open medal. One of my most satisfying wins was beating Ceilo Dias of Portugal in front of his home crowd. Being booed as I walked out to fight him only made me want to win more it was a close fight but in the end along with some good referring the fight went the right way. Having lost to him in Miami Pan American open in August it is always nice to get some revenge.”

Team Bath’s Tom Reed (-81kg) narrowly missed out on a medal but finished fifth.

Interim men’s coach Jean-Paul Bell said: “GB was represented in the Olympic qualification event in Lisbon by a strong group of athletes. It is great to see that the GB squad are exposing themselves to this level of competition and being successful. Notably performances for GB at 90kg a Silver medal from Frazer Chamberlain who overcome the strong Portuguese Dias en-route to the final. Also at 90kg Andrew Burns won a bronze medal defeating the Japanese fighter Sugahara. Tom Reed also placed 5th in the 81kg category. There were good performances from the team all around.”