Jones loses in first round & Sinden misses out on medal

Jade Jones’ bid for Olympic history ended in another early defeat in the taekwondo -57kg first round in Paris.

The 31-year-old Briton was bidding to become the first three-time Olympic champion in the sport’s history.

She was beaten at the same stage in Tokyo three years ago, which she later described as the “biggest low” of her career.

On Thursday, Jones lost the first round of the best-of-three tie to Macedonia’s Miljana Reljikj, narrowly won the second and drew the third.

That led to the number of registered hits being used as a tie-breaker, with Reljikj coming out on top.

In the men’s 68kg competition, Britain’s Tokyo silver medallist Bradly Sinden pulled out of his bronze-medal fight through injury.

Jones was cleared to compete in Paris after being found to have committed a no-fault doping violation on confidential medical grounds.

The Briton was provisionally suspended by the UK Anti-Doping Agency (Ukad) after she failed to provide a urine sample to officials who arrived at her hotel in Manchester on 1 December 2023.

Ukad said it had been presented with confidential medical records that showed Jones bore “no fault or negligence for her refusal or failure to submit to her sample collection”.

Jones, who tested negative later that day after providing a sample to a separate tester, says she made a “mistake” by not providing the sample at the first time of asking.

After losing his semi-final fight with Zaid Kareem, Sinden missed the chance to add bronze to his Olympic silver from three years ago as he had to withdraw from the third-place bout.

Doncaster-born Sinden earlier overcame Croatia’s Marko Golubic in the quarter-finals and edged a tight first round against Jordan’s Kareem.

However, after losing a close second round, he received two kicks to the head in the decider and slipped to a 10-2 defeat to end his hopes of becoming the first British man to win Olympic gold in the sport.

The two-time world champion was due to fight China’s Yushuai Liang for bronze but was unable to compete due to an injury and leaves Paris empty-handed.

“I didn’t want to end Paris 2024 like this but sometimes your body has different plans for you,” Sinden said.