Maryna Slutskaya continues victories at Grand Prix level

In the women’s heavyweight of the Grand Prix in Tbilisi Maryna Slutskaya of Belarus won the gold medal. Slutskaya stopped the local Elene Kebadze of host nation Georgia on her way to the final. The public strongly supported her though, after her first two wins on ne-waza (groundwork) during the preliminary rounds, especially against the top seed athlete of the day, Svitlana Iaromka (UKR).

In the final, Slutskaya was opposed to two-time world silver medallist, Maria Suelen Altheman (BRA), who won her first two rounds by ippon.

During the whole final Maria Suelen Altheman never seemed to be in the position to take the lead. Maryna Slutskaya took the advantage when scoring a first waza-ari with an action-reaction technique and then simply controlled the bout by alternatively moving around and going on the ground to save some precious seconds. The Belarusian scored again with a drop seoi-nage to confirm her first gold medal at a Grand Prix.

The first bronze medal contest opposed Svitlana Iaromka (UKR) and Santa Pakenyte (LTU). After almost two minutes of observation, Svitlana Iaromka being much smaller than her opponent, engaged her leg for a superb o-soto-otoshi and a clear ippon.

In the second bronze medal contest Mercedesz Szigetvari (HUN) had the difficult task to face Elene Kebadze (GEO) who was competing in front of her public. The Georgian step by step put pressure on the shoulders of her opponent, but when that pressure was transferred onto the elbow of Szigetvari in a wake-gatame attempt, which can be dangerous, the jury decided to award a hansokumake to the Georgian, which offered the victory to Mercedesz Szigetvari.