Met by a deafening home crowd, Jones walked onto the mat hoping to follow in the footsteps of Mahama Cho and Lutalo Muhammad, who had taken gold for Britain in the first two days of competition.

Her Spanish opponent Eva Calvo had other ideas, however, and with just under a minute gone in the opening round she took the lead with a shot to the hogu.

With no more points scored in the first round, Jones looked to make amends in the second and exploded out of the blocks, aiming for the head shot as she so often does.

A few efforts had the crowd on their feet as they screamed their support for the home favourite but it was Calvo who managed to take another point, landing another ruthlessly accurate kick to the body.

The third round was when the contest really came alive after Jones felt a kick to the head had landed and called for a review of the decision.

The judges felt satisfied that nothing untoward had taken place and left the contest to continue at 2-0, however moments later a second blow was registered putting the Briton in 3-2 in front.

The Spaniards were not happy with the decision and called for a second review of the round only for this one to prove successful and pull Jones' score back to zero.

The local athlete was furious with the decision claiming that her kick had landed on the second attempt as she flicked her foot back around following the initial strike.

Jade Jones was in disbelief when her head shot was ruled out following a review from the Spanish coach ©Getty Images


The calls fell on deaf ears and play continued, with Calvo capitalising on the clearly frustrated Jones to take a four-point lead.

The British athlete exploded back to life in the final 30 seconds, landing a number of telling blows to pull herself back into contention but her efforts fell short and she was forced to settle for silver with a final score of 4-3.

"I'm just so frustrated," said Jones.

"I really wanted to be the first ever Grand Prix champion and in Manchester as well.

"I thought the second kick of that kick scored but you know its taekwondo and I've just got to take the points and be happy with it and move on.

"I'm really chuffed with myself; I've had a long term injury so I haven't been back long.

"I'm still happy but obviously I could have won that so I'm just a bit frustrated at myself really."

The last final of the Grand Prix saw Russia's Aleksey Denisenko come out on top against Canada's Maxime Potvin ©FTP



The second final, and the last contest of the Grand Prix, saw Russia's Olympic bronze medallist Aleksey Denisenko edge past Canadian athlete and US Open champion Maxime Potvin in an extremely cagey affair in the under 68kg category.

Compared to the thrills and spills of the first final, this encounter kept the crowd firmly on their seats as each athlete looked to out manoeuvre his opponent in a battle that seemed to be fought more in the competitors minds than on the field of play.

Just one point towards the end of the second round was enough for the Russian to take the win.

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