Russian Leo Fogel earns first IJF Tour medal

Russian judoka Leo Fogel was one of the biggest winners at the Grand Prix of Ulaanbaatar as he won his first Grand Prix gold medal by defeating former Tashkent Grand Prix silver medallist Battsetseg Batgerel. As the shidos began to accumulate for both judoka because of their passivity, Fogel, stepped up his work rate and threw with a seoi-otoshi for a waza-ari as the contest reached its halfway point.

The Russian added a yuko score before pinning his Mongolian opponent to the tatami for 15 seconds and a fine victory by wazari-awasette-ippon.

In the first semi-final Junior World Championships bronze medallist Martin Hojak of Slovenia came undone against Fogel whose best result on the circuit before today was a seventh-place finish in Ulaanbaatar in 2014. The even contest required golden score and an additional 49 seconds were needed to produce the first and last score as the Russian countered a weak ouchi-gari for a yuko. In the second semi-final Battsetseg downed Azeri Fagan Guluzada by ippon after exactly one minute with a uchi-mata.

The first bronze medal was won by beaten semi-finalist Guluzada who scored four times without reply against Madrid European bronze medallist Telman Valiyev (AZE). A yuko from a neat piece of ashi-waza was first to register for the Azeri before a uchi-mata was rewarded with a second yuko. Guluzada was just getting started and finished with three yukos to his name which was two more than his teammate. The second bronze medal was won by Narankhuu Khadbaatar (MGL) who was fighting for a Grand Prix medal for the first time in his career. Narankhuu defeated number one seed Hojak to capture the final place on the podium by ippon after two minutes from a sode-tsurikomi-goshi.