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Judo Grand Slam in Astana: Home team shows solid performance

The World Judo Tour says goodbye to Astana. In the Barys Arena, the spectators enjoyed exciting fights at the end of the Grand Slam.

It was time for the last day of the Judo Grand Slam in the Kazakh capital Astana on Sunday.

Matvey Kanikovskiy finished his fight in the class up to 100 kg with a brilliant score in the final – and won his 3rd gold in a row on the World Tour.

In the 90 kg category, Tristani Mosakhlishvili from Spain was able to take advantage of a faulty attack by Frenchman Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou to win the gold medal.

It was a great moment, Mosakhlishvili told afterwards. “Everyone stood up and cheered for me, I was very happy.”

In the 78kg category, Japan’s Mao Izumi managed to keep Portugal’s Patricia Sampaio at bay to claim the gold medal.

“The crowd cheered for my opponent when she attacked,” Izumi said later, “but the moment I applied a hold, the crowd went crazy. That cheer made me happy. “

In the over 78 kg weight class, China’s Shiyan Xu took the title with a powerful o-uchi-gari technique.

In the over 100 kg category, Tamerlan Bashaev repeated his performance of a fortnight ago and took gold again against Temur Rakhimov.

With a strong team performance over the past three days, the Kazakhstan team was able to celebrate some medals at this Grand Slam.

On the final day, there were some of the best fights and one last chance for the judo fans in Astana to cheer on their athletes.

Islam Bozbayev, for example, showed a series of great techniques on his way to the bronze medal – in a thrilling Uchi-Mata finish.

By Klaus