Diyorbek Urozboev wins fist World Tour gold for Uzbekistan

Uzbek lightweight Diyorbek Urozboev navigated his way through to a star-packed category to win his maiden Grand Prix title in Tbilisi. World number 17 Urozboev defeated Paris Grand Slam bronze medallist Dashdavaa Amartuvshin of Mongolia in the U60kg final. The Abu Dhabi Grand Slam bronze medallist was penalised with a shido for dropping but that failed to impact the contest as he scored a waza-ari with a modified kata-guruma and added a second waza-ari to take gold.

In the first semi-final Bekir Ozlu of Turkey was beaten by Dashdavaa by ippon with 27 seconds left on the clock while in the second semi-final Tashkent Grand Prix bronze medallist Otar Bestaev (KGZ) lost by the same margin to Urozboev with 90 seconds remaining.

The first bronze medal was claimed by former Mongolian world champion Ganbat Boldbaatar whose best judo was too good for Bestaev as he won by ippon with 90 seconds left in the contest. Ganbat countered an uchi-mata attempt to drive over his opponent for an emphatic score and was cool and collected with no emotion knowing that this result is the minimum of what he should be achieving on the Grand Prix stage. The second bronze medal went to former European champion Amiran Papinashvili (GEO) who won his country’s first medal of the competition by defeating Georgian-born Ozlu. Papinashvili thought he did enough for a score and the referee awarded a yuko but the IJF Referee Commission had the benefit of multiple angles when reviewing the decision and cancelled the yuko. The Georgian finally went ahead with a neat piece of ashi-waza before being penalised for going out and then passivity. Ozlu needed to chase down Papinashvili in the closing seconds and got caught on the ground as he had so submit to a strangle.

Diyorbek Urozboev is the successor of his compatriot Sharafuddin Lutfillaev in Tbilisi who won the event last year. Since 2000 this category has seen 16 different winners from 7 different countries.