Kim Seong-Yeon proves the development of the Korean women

How many female Kim’s have won the Paris Grand Slam? Today another Kim was added to the three. In the absence of world number one, Kim Polling (NED) in the final block it was Korean Kim Seong-Yeon who personally defeated Kim Polling. Kim Jan-Di had won the Paris Grand Slam on Saturday and Kim Seong-Yeon was ambitious today to be added to the list as well.

Kim qualified for the final against defending Paris champion Tachimoto Haruka of Japan. The four minutes of the regular time did not offer any significant opportunity for either athlete to score, but active throughout the combat, they were not penalised either. So they entered the golden score with a clean scoreboard. Two minutes later, the situation was still exactly the same, but finally Tachimoto was penalised for passivity as she suffered her first defeat since 2014 and presented the third victory to the Korean delegation here in Paris, and the third Kim to be listed on the world’s best tournament as the winner.

In the first semi-final former Canadian world number one Kelita Zupancic fell to Kim in a nervy contest as the former was penalised on two occasions while gold medal-hunting Kim was only penalised once. In the second semi-final Tachimoto profited from a costly mistake by world bronze medallist Fanny Estelle Posvite (FRA) who was disqualified for trying a dangerous and banned waki-gatame with 48 seconds remaining.

The first bronze medal was won by Jeju Grand Prix winner Sally Conway (GBR) as her would-be opponent Posvite had been disqualified in the previous round and therefore lost her place in the competition and the opportunity to fight for a medal. The second bronze medal contest featured current world champion and world number five, Gevrise Emane (FRA), who was qualified against the athlete who immediately follows her on the World Ranking List, the Canadian Kelita Zupancic. Emane was penalised with a first shido within the first half of the fight. Again the French seemed in danger as she couldn’t really escape from Zupancic’s pressure but as the Canadian was pushing Emane outside the fighting area, the French dropped on her knees for one of her homemade drop seoi-nage for waza-ari. Then two-time winner Emane just had to control her opponent to add one more medal to her hugely impressive prize list which now includes 3 medals in Paris.