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LUCY Renshall made an impressive debut at the 2017 Paris Grand Slam as she finished in fifth after some very impressive performances.

Fighting on Saturday 11 February at the AccorsHotel Arena the SKK judoka was up against Spain’s Sarai Padilla Guerrero in the second round after receiving a bye as a top eight seed at -63kg.

Renshall put in a very strong performance against the Spanish judoka and forced her opponent to pick up two shidos. However, it looked like the contest would go still go into golden score. The British judoka put in one final big attack to score for waza-ari in dying seconds and book her spot in the last eight.

Olympic champion Tina Trstenjak (SLO) was next up and the Slovenian had looked in serious form in her first match scoring four waza-ari against Gankhaich Bold (MGL). She carried that form forward and was able to secure osaekomi with less than two minutes for the full 20 seconds.

Dropping into the repechage Renshall was faced by Japan’s Miho Minei, 2014 Junior World champion and 2016 Tokyo Grand Slam silver medallist. Minei had also beaten Renshall at the 2014 Junior Worlds but the 21 year old turned in arguably her best performance of the day as she proved more than a match for the Japanese judoka.

The British fighter displayed great maturity as she went ahead by waza-ari with half the contest to go and, despite conceding a couple of late shidos, was able to hold onto the lead.

Kiyomi Watanabe was her opponent for bronze and the Philippine judoka had been in great form during the day including a win over World No.10 Junxia Yang of China. In a tough contest Renshall was close to scoring on a number of occasions but couldn’t quite finish the contest. With less than thirty seconds to go, Watanabe was able to get Renshall in an awkward position and apply to juji-gatame, forcing the British judoka to tap out.

GB Coach Jamie Johnson was very impressed with her performance today:

"We know Lucy's got a lot of improvement in her judo to come but she fought the Olympic champion today and fought her well. She dealt with the 2014 Junior World champion pretty comfortably considering she lost to her three years ago quite easily.

"Her gripping was very good, she out-gripped Minei and had the better of the gripping against Watanabe in the bronze fight.

"There is a bit of disappointment with the bronze fight because she was in control and it was her mistake that ended the fight. However, she's just 21 and she'll learn from today. She's performing consistently at senior level and I'm confident she'll have another chance to fight for a Paris medal in her career."

While she missed out on a medal, Renshall has gained 360 world ranking points which should move her inside the world top 20 for the first time in her career.