Team GB suffered another early defeat in the judo at the European Games on Friday as Owen Livesey was beaten in the second round of the -81kg category.
The Commonwealth Games champion saw off Srdjan Mrvaljevic of Serbia in the last 64 before losing to Portugal's Carlos Luz.
Judo at this year's European Games is doubling up as the sport's European Championships, while ranking points for the Rio Olympics are also available.
Sports Mole spoke with Livesey after his elimination from the competition to get his thoughts.
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Owen, how are you feeling after that? You must be disappointed to lose so early...
"Not great. I've trained really hard. I knew that it was going to be a tough tournament because a lot of the world's strongest judo countries come from Europe. There was a lot of expectation from back home and everything, but I gave it my all and it wasn't enough."
Were you hoping to at least get a place on the podium today?
"Every tournament that I go into I try to win, but it's really tough here. A lot of people expect me to win. Like I said, I've trained really hard for it, but it wasn't enough."
With this competition also acting as the European Championships, did that affect your mental preparation in any way?
"No, not really. This is the last year of Olympic qualification so we're all trying to get a medal and ranking points to get as high up the world rankings as we can. This was just an opportunity for us to get more points so with it doubling up it didn't make any difference."
Will you have much time to reflect on your experience here or are you back in action quite quickly?
"I've got a couple of tournaments coming up. I've got the British Open which does nothing for ranking points and then I've got a tournament in Chinese Taipei - the World Cup - that's in four weeks. When I get back [to the UK] I'm going to get straight back into training as normal."
