The first to take medals for Europe on the second day of competition in the Ulaanbaatar Grand Slam were the -63kg women. For both Nina SIMIC (CRO) and Gataene DEBERDT (FRA), this was a special day, both taking their first ever grand slam medals.
For Deberdt, it was a touch and go situation as her opponent, Friederike STOLZE (GER) countered an uchi mata attack from the French athlete and earned waza ari, but then failed to defend as she rolled, and seeing the opportunity, Deberdt jumped on for the osaekomi.
Simic on the other hand had a tremendous back and forth battle with AONO Minami (JPN). The Japanese athlete was first to score yuko with o uchi gari. After this initial attack, Simic had her number and on her next attempt, countered the o uchi gari to even the score. After this comeback, the Croatian judoka seemingly had a confidence boost, scoring waza ari with a huge ko soto gake, but feeling the pressure, Aono came in hard and managed to score a second yuko. This wasn’t enough but Aono piled on the pressure, forcing two shido on Simic with mere seconds to go. In a last ditch attempt, it was another o uchi gari entry but Simic was waiting and countered for waza ari and the win.
We have great athletes in -63kg so I’m happy that today it’s me. I really wanted to some other girl, not Japanese judoka because in my last final block it didn’t work out for me, but today I was really feeling the judo and I was better than the last grand slam. In my head, I only have the good emotions now, it’s like I can turn off my memory for what happened, but as you saw, it was all feeling for me. This tends to be how it happens for me, I fight better with my instinct rather than tactics.
On the men’s side, Adam TSECHOEV (IJF) added another grand slam medal to his collection following a silver medal win in Dushanbe this year, only this time it was a comeback following a semi final loss to take the bronze. With only eight seconds left on the clock, he pulled out a deep kata guruma movement against Gadzhidavud GASANOV (BRN) to score ippon.
Judoka
Author: Thea Cowen