On Friday British judoka Chelsie Giles will be competing in the Grand Prix in Portugal in Almada. Chelsie is an up and coming judo star, having achieved a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and becoming the European Champion in 2022. Today she turned 26 years.
In the past two years, Chelsie has seen remarkable success in the judo circuit. In 2022, she took a silver medal at the World Championships in Tashkent, followed by a gold medal at the Grand Slam in Tel Aviv in 2021. Most recently, in 2022, she achieved a silver medal at the IJF Masters in Jerusalem.
In the lead-up to the Grand Prix, Giles has been training hard and is confident going into the competition as the number one seed. The Briton won’t have too much opposition for a top rank in Almada and is poised to win the gold in a field with Aleksandra Kaleta (POL) ranked second who lost three times to Giles, Spaniards Lopez Sheriff and Perez Box are outsiders for a spot in the final. Portuguese Joana Diogo is among the seeded players in the field that might see a surprise from upcoming Belgian star Amber Ryheul. Giles developed like a rocket, she lost to Ryheul as a junior at the Junior Worlds in 2017.
The draft roster now shows 34 participants in this category U52kg, more than ever before at an international senior event in Portugal. Last year there were 22 players in this division at the Grand Prix. The second edition. Giles is the number one in the IJF World Ranking. She lost to Uta Abe in the World Championships final and to Distria Krasniqi for gold at the Masters.
