Judo IJF World Tour 2019

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

 

Day #1 Recap

 

First day of action in Abu Dhabi with many important names at the start and some surprising results...

 

5 weight classes were on the mat today and 5 different Nations won the available Gold Medals, with Italy topping the provisional Medal Table thanks to Manuel Lombardo's success in the men's -66kg class and to the Silver Medal won by Odette Giuffrida in the women's -52kg class, where we had a very tough final between the Italian and the eventual winner Majlinda Kelmendi, who needed 8 minutes and 40 seconds to find the way to beat her opponent (after getting 2 shido in the regulation time and being highly at risk of taking also the 3rd sanction more than once)...

 

the remaining Gold Medals went to Gusman Kyrgyzbayev (men's -60kg), Daria Bilodid (women's -48kg) and Kim Jin A (women's -57kg)

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_uae2019.php

Edited October 24, 2019 by phelps

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

 

Day #2 Recap

 

Second day of action in Abu Dhabi and once again we had great balance between the participating Nations, with the 4 Gold Medals awarded today going to 4 different Countries (different also from those winning yesterday's Golds)...

 

so, now we have 9 Nations at the top of the medal table with "only" 1 Gold Medal each...

 

Today's Gold Medal winners are: Bilal Ciloglu (men's -73kg), Lee Moon-Jin (men's -81kg), Tina Trstenjak (women's -63kg) and Kim Polling (women's -70kg)

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_uae2019.php

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Abu Dhabi, UAE)

 

Day #3 Recap

 

South Korea, thanks to the 2 Gold Medals (Cho Gu Ham, men's -100kg & Han Mi Jin, women's +78kg) won in the 3rd and last day of action, topped the Medal Table at the end of the tournament with 3 Gold Medals...

 

Today's remaining Gold Medal went to: Nikoloz Sherazadishvili (men's -90kg), Roy Meyer (men's +100kg) and Klara Apotekar (women's -78kg)

 

Following the Koreans, in the final Medal Table the Netherlands and Slovenia ranked second and third respectively, both with 2 Gold and 1 Silver Medal, but the Dutch having won also 1 Bronze medal more than the rivals...

 

Finally, 7 more Nations ( Ukraine, Kosovo, People's Republic of Korea, Kazakhstan, Italy, Turkey and Spain) won 1 Gold Medal each...

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_uae2019.php

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Osaka, JPN)

 

Day #1 Recap

 

Last Grand Slam tournament of the season and, as expected, usual dominating performance by the Home Nation, Japan.

 

One of the most anticapated themes of today's session was the chance for them to have a sweep of all 5 available Gold Medals...and this just didn't happen only because of Amandine Bouchard's success in the Golden Score in the women's -52kg class against Uta Abe.

 

So, Japan finally won "only" 4 out of 5 Gold Medals awarded today: Naohisa Takato (-60kg) plus Hifumi Abe (-66kg) among the men and Funa Tonaki (-48kg) plus Momo Tamaoki (-57kg) among the women.

 

The other great theme from today's session was the everlasting fight for the Olympic spot between Hifumi Abe and Joshiro Maruyama (men's -66kg class).

 

and well, both easily reached the final, where they once again put on a great show.

 

But this time Abe came out as the eventual winner (not even to be said, in the Golden Score...and thanks to a genius move), taking the overall score of their personal match-ups in international competitions to a 2-2 tie and keeping his hope to make the Japanese Olympic team alive.

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_jpn2019.php

[phelps 7,664]

@MHSN

 

Today Saei Mollaei made his official comeback on the World Tour after the messy end of the 2019 Worlds in Tokyo...

 

of course, he competed in his own -81kg class under the IJF patronage...

 

he did look in decent, but not perfect shape...but he still managed to win his first 2 bouts against Emmanuel Lucenti (ippon) and Lee Sung Ho (hansoku-make), before losing the pool final against Sotaro Fujiwara (ippon) and the repechage round against Frank De Wit (ippon at the golden score)...

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Osaka, JPN)

 

Day #2 Recap

 

and if yesterday Amandine Bouchard was the hero of the day for the rest of the world, avoiding the Home Nation's clean sweep of Gold Medals, today nothing could stop Japan from winning all 4 the Gold Medals up for grabs.

 

Masashi Ebinuma (-73kg) plus Takanori Nagase (-81kg) among the men and Masako Doi (-63kg) plus Yoko Ono (-70kg) among the women are today's champions in Osaka.

 

Moreover, not happy with this amazing superiority, Japan added to their Gold medals also 3 out of 4 Silver and in the women's -63kg class they had a true clean sweep of that weight category, taking all 4 medals.

 

The best of the rest, therefore, was Kim Polling, who was the only non-Japanese fighter reaching a Gold medal match (women's -70kg), where unfortunately she lost to Yoko Ono by a strangle technique in the Golden Score period...

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_jpn2019.php

[MHSN 3,613]

1 hour ago, phelps said:

@MHSN

 

Today Saei Mollaei made his official comeback on the World Tour after the messy end of the 2019 Worlds in Tokyo...

 

of course, he competed in his own -81kg class under the IJF patronage...

 

he did look in decent, but not perfect shape...but he still managed to win his first 2 bouts against Emmanuel Lucenti (ippon) and Lee Sung Ho (hansoku-make), before losing the pool final against Sotaro Fujiwara (ippon) and the repechage round against Frank De Wit (ippon at the golden score)...

 

Yes I saw his results, can't watch anything though because of the internet situation here.

 

but his coach is claiming he wasn't ready because he was worried about people in his "home country" !! so far all his defeats were intentional, now this is a new excuse. I wonder what they will make up next time he losses.

 

I was a bit lazy (or not interested) to write more about him but more came out in past couple of weeks about him. the chat archive of him and one of IJF officials. he was planning for it for a long time.

[phelps 7,664]

1 hour ago, MHSN said:

 

Yes I saw his results, can't watch anything though because of the internet situation here.

 

but his coach is claiming he wasn't ready because he was worried about people in his "home country" !! so far all his defeats were intentional, now this is a new excuse. I wonder what they will make up next time he losses.

 

I was a bit lazy (or not interested) to write more about him but more came out in past couple of weeks about him. the chat archive of him and one of IJF officials. he was planning for it for a long time.

 

p.s. good luck for the situation in your Country...

 

I hope everything gets fixed in a good manner quickly and nobody (other than those unfortunately already have) gets hurt anymore...

[phelps 7,664]

Grand Slam (Osaka, JPN)

 

Day #3 Recap

 

finally, on day #3 we have some other Nations shining in Osaka...

 

Japan, in fact, today won "only" 3 out of 5 Gold Medals (Ryonosuke Haga, men's -100kg; Mami Umeki, women's -78kg; Akira Sone, women's +78kg) and we also saw only 1 full Japanese affair out of 5 Gold Medal bouts (the women's -78kg class)...

 

Today's 2 non-Japan champions are Beka Gviniashvili (men's 90kg) and Inal Tasoev (men's +100kg)...

 

so, the final medal table obviously has been dominated by Japan with 11 Gold, 8 Silver and 15 Bronze medals, followed by France, Georgia and Russia with 1 Gold Medal each...

 

in total, 16 Nations won at least a medal (adding those not winning any gold)...

 

very disappointing (useless and just "cosmetic") appearance by the Italian team, with only 5 fighters participating and a single 7th place as the best result...

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/gs_jpn2019.php

[phelps 7,664]

World Masters (Qingdao, CHN)

 

Day #1 Recap

 

time for the last big tournament of the year...and what a tournament it is!

 

it's the second most important of the whole season (at least in terms of World and Olympic Qualification Ranking points awarded), the World Masters, reserved to the best 36 fighters of the world ranking in each class...

 

and as expected, despite a few of their stars being absent, Japan topped the medal table after the first day of competition, when 5 weight classes have been completed...

 

the world leading Judo Nation won in fact 2 out of 5 available Gold Medals, thanks to Ryuju Nagayama (men's -60kg) and Ai Shishime (women's -52kg)...

 

today's remaining Gold Medals went to Italy (Manuel Lombardo, men's -66kg), Kosovo (Distria Krasniqi, women's -48kg) and North Korea (Kim Jin A, women's -57kg, 3rd win out of 3 IJF World Tour tournaments for her)...

 

Full Results, here:

http://www.ippon.org/masters2019.php

 

Day #1, Final Block replay

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by phelps