Anastasiya Turchyn finally takes gold in IJF World Tour

At the Grand Slam in Tbilisi both French were expected to be in the final, especially Madeleine Malonga, who is currently world number 12 and was the top seeded athlete of the category. But the 23 year-old was surprisingly defeated in the semi-final by Anastasiya Turchyn (UKR). The Ukrainian joined the second French, Same Hawa Camara, who qualified against Karen Stevenson (NED).

The first unprepared attacks of Camara did not put in danger the tall Turchyn, who seemed to perfectly control the French fire. Camara was then penalised, her attacks being not enough prepared. She was again penalided a little later as she was not active on the tatami. As the end of the bout was approaching, the French was again penalised a third time, giving the victory to Anastasiya Turchyn.

The first bronze medal match saw the 2014 Baku Grand Slam silver medallist, Assunta Galeone (ITA) facing Karen Stevenson (NED), who finished third at the 2016 Budapest Grand Prix. Three minutes were necessary to see the first main intervention of the referee as Stevenson was awarded with a shido for passivity. But this only penalty forced both athletes to enter the golden score. 52 secondes later, Galeone finally applied a perfectly executed o-soto-otoshi for ippon for a fourth medal on a Grand Prix for the Italian.

Probably disappointed by her performance in the semi-final, Madeleine Malonga (FRA) had one more chance to step on the podium as she was opposed to Karen Stevenson (NED) in the second bronze medal contest. With a first o-uchi-gari after ten seconds, Malonga scored a first waza-ari, immediately followed on the floor wth a shime-waza for ippon in 22 seconds.