Five set for Baku Grand Slam
The IJF World Tour heads to Azerbaijan this weekend for the penultimate Grand Slam of 2022 in Baku.
The Heydar Aliyev Sport Arena will play host as 5 GB judoka compete over the 3 days competition.
Friday
Following her gold medal at the recent Perth Oceania Open last weekend, Lele Nairne (club: Bradley Stoke; coach: Pete Douglas) will compete in the -57kg category alongside Nekoda Smythe-Davis (Ealing JC; Jo Crowley)who recently finished 7th at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam.
Seeded 8th, Nairne has an opening-round bye and will face the winner of the round one contest between Hasret Bozkurt (TUR) and Anna Dabrowska (POL).
Smythe-Davis has an opening-round contest against Munkhtuya Ganbat (MGL).
Saturday
World number one Lucy Renshall (SKK: Pete Blood) recently won gold at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam and heads to Baku as defending champion.
Renshall has an opening-round bye before facing either Hannah Martin (USA) or Yesui Darkhanbatbayar (MGL)
Sunday
Natalie Powell (Irfon JC; Mark Earl) claimed silver at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam two weeks ago. Competing in the -78kg category she is joined by Commonwealth Games champion Emma Reid (Redbridge JC; Steve Sandy).
Powell enters as 3rd seed whilst Reid heads to Baku as 5th seed. Both judoka have opening round byes with Reid facing Patricia Sampaio (POR) and Powell facing Petrunjela Pavic (CRO) in Round 2.
Preliminary Round action starts at 07:00am (GMT) on Friday and Sunday whilst action on Saturday starts at 06:00am.
Final Block is scheduled to commence at 13:00 on each day.
You can watch all the action from the Baku Grand Slam LIVE at live.ijf.org each day.
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