British Judo has formally announced plans to host an open international visually impaired judo competition in Great Britain in June 2016.

The event, which will take place on 4-5^th June in Walsall, will be the final opportunity for Paralympic judo athletes across the world to compete in an international competition before the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio this September.

Four judoka were added to ParalympicsGB’s team for the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games in February, with plans for them to compete at the Grand Prix event as part of their final preparations.

Two time Paralympic medallist, Sam Ingram (-90kg), said: “This is a great opportunity and I’m looking forward to it a lot. We had the European Championships in 2011 in Crawley and that was a fantastic event, hopefully this one will be as well.

“It’s always good to have home support. I actually find it strange because for most of our events you can’t understand what the crowd is saying but we’ll be at home, we can understand what people are saying and people will be supporting you as a British athlete, which is nice. Hopefully the judo fans enjoy it because I know the players will.”

Ingram will be joined in by fellow ParalympicsGB team-mates aiming to compete at the event including Jono Drane (-81kg), Chris Skelley (-100kg) and Jack Hodgson (+100kg).

The competition is the first of its kind to be hosted in Britain, but there are hopes for the competition to become a key date on the visually impaired judo calendar and a Paralympic qualification event in the next cycle.

Interest is high in the competition, with nations across the world already entering their competitors.

The competition will be followed by a three day training camp, maximising the opportunity to train with some of the world’s top visually impaired judoka. The camp will be held at British Judo’s Centre of Excellence which opened its doors in 2013 after the London 2012 games.

The competition and training camp is supported by UK Sport.

There are limited availability of seats available for spectators – tickets are free but all spectators are asked to register in advance at: www.britishjudo.org.uk/vigrandprix