Bradly Sinden claimed taekwondo silver on day two of the Tokyo Olympics after Chelsie Giles won Team GB's first medal of the Games with judo bronze.
In the men's -68kg event, 2019 world champion Sinden was beaten in a dramatic final by Uzbekistan qualifier Ulugbek Rashitov. Giles, competing at her first Olympics, finished third in the -52kg event, beating Switzerland's Fabienne Kocher to win bronze.
Earlier, Sinden's team-mate and two-time defending Olympic champion Jade Jones fell to a shock defeat in the opening round of the women's -57kg taekwondo. Jones, the gold medallist in both London and Rio, was stunned by Kimia Alizadeh of the refugee team.
That came moments after Andy Murray, also a two-time Olympic champion, pulled out of the defence of his singles title with a minor thigh strain – although he will still continue in the men's doubles, alongside Joe Salisbury, after they won their opener.
Meanwhile, Olympics organisers have cancelled two days of rowing with adverse weather conditions expected to hit Japan's capital. That news comes on the same day an extreme weather policy was activated in the tennis tournament, with temperatures reaching 32C in Tokyo, leading the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to trigger measures to give competitors more protection.
Sinden went close to becoming the first British male Olympic taekwondo champion but lost 39-24 in a topsy-turvy final. "I was unlucky with a few things, but he's a top fighter. It was my gold medal to give away - it was there for me to take," the 22-year-old from Doncaster said.
He had found himself facing defeat in his semi-final, falling 16-9 behind at one stage to Zhao Shuai of China before battling back to win 33-25. Sinden had powered into the semi-final with a 20-point victory margin over Hakan Recber and then dug in against Zhao, a Rio Olympic champion at the lighter -58kg category.
Giles had only won her first Grand Slam gold medal in Israel earlier this year but can now add Olympic bronze to her collection. She won the repechage against Kocher by ippon, an early scoring waza-ari having given her the advantage before she showed the greater composure to hold on.
The 24-year-old had lost to Japan's Uta Abe in the quarter-finals, but beat Charline van Snick of Belgium in the first repechage round to give herself a medal chance. Her bronze means Britain's judo team have won a medal at the each of the past three Olympics, following on from the bronze won by Sally Conway at Rio 2016 and the silver and bronze that Gemma Gibbons and Karina Bryant picked up at London 2012.
The double medal wins came after Jade Jones entered Tokyo 2020 as one of GB's favourites to win an Olympic title. In doing so, she would have become the first British woman to win Olympic gold at three successive Games and the first taekwondo fighter to win triple gold. Nicknamed the Headhunter, because she prefers to score points from her opponent's head rather than their body, Jones is the reigning world champion in her division and had entered the Games as number one seed.
But she met her match in Alizadeh who, five years ago in Rio, became the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal with -57kg bronze. Her 16-12 defeat of Jones in Tokyo was Alizadeh's first international fight since 2018 after fleeing Iran in 2020 and the Iran Taekwondo Association refusing to allow her to represent another nation.
