Quilter recovers to take bronze

Great Britain's Ben Quilter overcame a disappointing start to the day to win judo bronze at the ExCel on Thursday evening.

The number one seed in the under 60kg category was knocked out at the first hurdle by reigning champion Mouloud Noura.

However, Quilter dusted himself down after the quarter-final defeat and, having come through two repechage bouts, beat Japan's Takaaki Hirai in the bronze medal encounter.

Having overcome Mongolia's Munkhbat Aajim in the first repechage, Quilter looked rejuvenated in the second session as he beat the United States' Ronald Hawthorne and then Hirai.

As hard as those two fights were, though, the Brighton-born judoka believes if it was not for crowd in east London he would not have made it past Aajim

"I don't know how I managed to pick myself up to fight the Mongolian," he said. "I think the crowd helped me massively

"In a combat sport like this when the chips are down, it is easy to give up and to think 'it's just not my day'.

"It was really tough to drag myself back, I'm not going to lie, but the crowd were fantastic and I didn't want to let anyone down, especially myself.

"I just wanted to perform as best I could with what I had."