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Tonbridge judo star Katie Jemima Yeats-Brown secured a dramatic bronze medal at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games on Friday evening.
The 19-year-old claimed the first medal of the night at the SECC in the women’s under-63kg category, despite only being called into the Team England party two hours before the registration deadline on Tuesday as a replacement for the injured Caroline Kinnane.
The former Benenden School, Cranbrook, pupil overcame London-based Szandra Szogedi of Ghana in her preliminary bout by a waza-ari on Friday morning, however she lost to Australian Katharina Haecker by ippon to end her quest for gold in the quarter-finals.
Yeats-Brown recovered to record a win over India's Garima Choudhary in the repechage to set-up a bronze medal match against Canada's Beatrice Valois Fortie on Friday evening.
The Canadian - who had been among the medal favourites - began ferociously but was unable to pin the former European Cadet Champion, who then flipped her opponent before exacting a 20-second hold to win by ippon.
The Commonwealth bronze followed a bronze in the Junior European Cup in Poland last Sunday.
Yeats-Brown said: "It has been a fairytale week - I was meant to be doing Laserquest today.
"I think I’d choose a Commonwealth Games medals over Laserquest though. I got the call-up to the Games at seven in the morning on Tuesday.
"I was actually quite annoyed because my mum said I could have a lie-in for the first time in about four weeks. She shook me awake and asked if I would like to fight at the Commonwealth Games.
"To be honest I thought my mum had lost the plot because selection was done months ago."