Jade Jones Crashes Out of Olympic Taekwondo Tournament: 'I Froze. The More You Win the Harder It Gets'
Jade Jones’s dream of a third Olympic gold medal was shattered when she lost her first bout at Paris 2024.
Any hopes she harboured of fighting her way into bronze medal contention evaporated too when her conqueror Milijana Reljiki was eliminated in her next bout.
The GB star lost a close contest to North Macedonia's Reljiki in her opening in the impressive surroundings of the Grand Palais, a historic venue with huge banks of seats soaring up on either side of the field of play.
Jones had won gold medals at both London 2012 and Rio 2016 but suffered a painful first-round exit at the Tokyo Games.
She met the same fate in Paris, even though Reljiki managed to edge her out only on a fine margin.
That crushed Jones' plans to become taekwondo's first three-time Olympic gold medallist.
"I came out today, I froze," Jones said bitterly. "The expectation, the pressure, I was trying to do something that no one had done. I knew I could. I was good enough.
"When it comes down to it sometimes you just freeze. You want it too much almost."
Jones lost the first round with Reljiki landing a kick to her head to claim the session. The Briton steadied herself in the second, taking that to make sure the contest went into a third, deciding round.
By John Dennen at the Grand Palais