Gantulga Altanbagana grabs only gold for Mongolia at Grand Prix in Turkey

The first male category final of the day opposed Gantulga Altanbagana of Mongolia, who finished only seventh last week in Tbilisi and Komronshokh Ustopiriyon of Tajikistan, who also obtained seventh places in 2017 so far (Paris Grand Slam and Düsseldorf Grand Prix).

The four minutes of the final went very fast as both athletes were very active even if they were not able to score. As an illustration of that, no penalty was awarded during 3 minutes and 58 seconds. Golden score was getting very close, but with only 2 seconds left on the clock, Gantulga suddenly dropped under the centre of gravity of Ustopiriyon, with a kata-guruma for a waza-ari. Two seconds synonymous of happiness for the Mongol champion.

In the first bronze medal contest Shakhzodbek Sabirov (UZB) was opposed to Magomed Magomedov (RUS). The Russian was the first in action as he scored a waza-ari in less than a minute with a te-waza technique. He added a second waza-ari thirty seconds later with a ko-soto-gari, as in the meantime, both athletes also received penalties (one for Magomedov, two for Sabirov). Sabirov started to believe he could win, when he also scored a waza-ari. With eleven seconds left, Magomedov was awarded with a second penalty but his two positive scores were enough to give him his first bronze medal on a Grand Prix.

The second bronze medal contest saw Jung Hae Joo (KOR) and Aleksandar Kukolj (SRB) disputing a spot on the podium. After a bit more than one minute, Kukolj received a first penalty for a pistol grip. After the next hajime, he launched an aerial uchi-mata for waza-ari, immediately followed on the floor with an immobilisation for ippon.