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ST HELENS judoka Amy Livesey equalled her career best finish at a Grand Slam to win bronze and most importantly gain valuable Olympic qualification points on the second day of the Tashkent Grand Slam.

The -63kg weight category is the most closely contended from a British Judo perspective, with three fighters in contention for the sole honour of representing Team GB at the Olympic Games Tokyo this summer.

Prior to the competition in Tashkent there were just 80 world ranking points separating Livesey and another St Helens woman Lucy Renshall, following Renshall’s 7th place finish at the recent Tel Aviv Grand Slam.

Following an opening round bye, Livesey defeated Parwin Askari (AFG) in just 12 seconds in their Round 2 contest.

In the third round she defeated Farangiz Khojieva (UZB), Khojieva amassing three penalty shidos, to progress to the Quarter-Finals to face recent World Masters bronze medallsit, Andreja Leski (SLO).

The Quarter-Final was a closely contested match that could have gone either way, but unfortunately for British Judo fans, during Golden Score it was Leski who scored a waza-ari to advance to the semifinals, while Livesey proceeded to the Repechage, to face Ekaterina Valkova (RUS) for a chance to fight for bronze.

In the Repechage Livesey dominated from the first exchange, an excellent transition from newaza to transition to shimewaza, forcing her opponent to tap out and concede the contest, meaning Livesey progressed to the bronze medal match to face Gankhaich Bold (MGL).

It took Livesey just 13 seconds to defeat Bold and claim bronze, throwing her opponent with a harai goshi to win by ippon score.

Speaking after the competition Livesey said: “I started today pretty slowly but I improved throughout the competition with each fight being better than the last.

“I tried a few things today that I have been working on in training, so it was great that they worked for me and I’m really pleased.

“This competition gives me valuable ranking points towards qualifying for Tokyo, which is the most important thing to me at the moment.”

Kate Howey, British Judo Head Coach, said: “Amy fought well today and improved with each fight she had.

"She has worked really hard during lockdown and it is starting to pay off. “I’m pleased that a few new things that we have worked on in training have worked for her today and I’m looking forward to her next competition in Georgia in a few weeks.”