Sarah Adlington’s bronze medal was the highlight for the British team at the 2016 Sofia European Open from Saturday 30 to Sunday 31 January.

Adlington started her day in the +78kg category with a solid win over Elisa Marchio (ITA) as she scored a yuko to secure a spot in the final four.

However she lost her semi-final to Germany’s Carolin Weiss on shidos after the contest went to golden score. Adlington recovered to defeat Sandra Jablonskyte (LTU) with a yuko again proving enough to secure the bronze medal.

There were also strong showings from Kim Renicks (-48kg) and Philip Awiti-Alcaraz (-100kg) as they finished seventh and fifth respectively.

Renicks got the better of Tsvetelina Tsvetanova (BUL) in her opening contest with a decisive win as she scored ippon in the first 30 seconds. However Renicks would then lose out to Israel’s Noa Minsker and Romania’s Monica Ungureanu to finish in seventh place.

Awiti-Alcaraz was in impressive form from the off as he won his first two contests against Lasha Guruli (GEO) and Luca Ardizio (ITA) by ippon. However in the quarter-final he took on the experienced Ramadan Darwish from Egypt who scored for waza-ari twice in quick to succession to take the contest.

The British judoka started the repechage with another ippon win against Frederik Joergensen (DEN) before losing out to Georgia’s Lasha Taveluri in the bronze medal match.

Bekky Livesey (-63kg), Amy Livesey (-63kg), Lubjana Piovesana (-63kg), Lucy Renshall (-63kg), Jemima Yeats-Brown (-70kg), Gregg Varey (-66kg), Patrick Dawson (-73kg) and Jan Gosiewski (-73kg) were also action in Sofia but were unable to make it out of their respective pools.

British judoka will next be in competing at the Paris Grand Slam on 6-7 February