Zelym Kotsoiev one of the youngest ever winners at Universiade

At the first day of the FISU Universiade in Taipei Korea had the best judoka. With gold for Han Mijin and two silver medals, the Koreans lead the medal table. The tournament also includes an open tournament at the last and fourth day, so the heavier categories started at day one.

Korean heavyweight Han Mijin defeated Lithuanian Santa Pakenyte. Pakenyte won bronze at the last edition in 2015 in Gwangju when Sarah Asahina was the winner. Both Asahina and Pakenyte will now compete at the World Championships in Budapest.

A surprise was the victory for Italy by Valeria Ferrari. The former Cadet European and World Champion in 2009 is back with her biggest senior victory in her career. Although she competed at senior European Championships and some European Open events, she never got to her cadet form again, but this individual result is a good milestone of progression. The 24-year old Italian is the first ever Italian winner at the Universiade.

Ferrari defeated Korean Jeongyun Lee in the final U78kg, Russia’s Alexandra Babintseva won bronze as well as Maike Ziech of Germany. The 2016 German champion made a successful comeback after a long knee injury. Ziech is former European Junior and U23 Champion.

The gold for men U100 was for Azeri Zelym Kotsoiev who is in a good shape. Kotsoiev recently won the Junior European Cups in Berlin and Prague. He turned 19 years 10 days ago and is among the top 5 youngest ever winners of the FISU judo tournament. Yasuyuki Muneta was in 1999 the youngest ever. Earlier mentioned Sarah Asahina the second youngest.

Kotsoiev overcame Kentero Iiida of Japan in the final. Russian European U23 Champion Niiaz Bilalov took bronze as well as Philipp Galandi, who’s sister won the World cadet title last week.

Japanese heavyweight Kokoro Kageura won gold after he beat Young-Seo Ju of Korea in the final. Anton Brachev (RUS) and Andrii Kolesnyk took bronze. Kageura defeated Olympic runner-up Hisayoshi Harasawa in the final of the Grand Prix in Düsseldorf this year to give an indication of the strength of this Universiade.