Olympian Colin Oates has vowed to bounce back quickly from his Baku disappointment after bowing out in the -66kg round of 16.
The 32-year-old’s day had begun with victory over Belgian opponent Kenneth van Gansbeke, but his progress was short lived with defeat to Sergiu Olenic of Portugal ending his European Games involvement.
Oates felt he should have performed better, but will not dwell on his exit.
“That’s the nature of the sport, you have to take these ups and downs quite a lot,” said the Commonwealth champion.
“I was hoping to at least get to the quarter-finals and have another crack.
“There were two good fights in me that were winnable fights, the kid I have just had is in good form, but if I produced the judo I’m capable of then I should have won that fight. It was a tight fight, the same as the first one.
“Sometimes this sport can be frustrating, because one score and it’s all over. He played the fight really well, he played the fight clever and made sure he nullified what I do well.”
Ashley McKenzie suffered defeat at the same stage of the -60kg competition, finding no way past Jeroen Mooren of Netherlands.
And Kelly Edwards was beaten in the round of 16 too, losing comprehensively to Romanian teenager Larisa Florian in their -52kg fight.
Commonwealth champion Nekoda Smythe Davis bowed out in the round of 32 to Russia’s Irina Zabludina, but was keen not to dwell on her defeat.
“Now I look forwards to the future,” she said. “I’ve only been on the circuit for two years, I’m still pretty young experience-wise, but at the same time I still wanted to come here and make my mark and see how well I could do.
“I was disappointed losing in the first round, but you just have to take it on the chin and move onto the next event, because this is only one event in the two-year qualification period, so it’s not the be-all and end-all.”
© Sportsbeat 2015