Theresa Stoll gets revenge on Gjakova in Tashkent

The last final of day 1 at the Grand Prix in Tashkent saw Germany’s super talent Theresa Stoll capturing gold in the final against Nora Gjakova of Kosovo who had recently won the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam. Gjakova had beaten Stoll a pair of times before and was poised to complete the hat-trick for Kosovo on the first day of competition in Uzbekistan.

Both athletes were penalized with a first shido within the first 50 seconds of the contest for avoiding combat. But as the final moved on, despite knowing that power is one of the Kosovan team's strengths, it was clear that the German was not afraid of attacking Gjakova, and found that she was actually able to throw Gjakova twice, first with a waza-ari on a counter-attack, and second for ippon with a o-soto-gari in the closing seconds of the match.

The first bronze medal contest was contested between Theresa’s twin sister Amelie Stoll (GER) and Anna Borowska (POL). After almost four minutes of a well-balanced contest, the victory went to the German, as the Polish was penalized for the third time for maintaining a one-sided grip. It is not often that both German sisters win their last contest. This year in Tbilisi they were also able to achieve a successfull result, with a gold for both Theresa for Amelie. Last year in The Hague Theresa fought herself into into the final but lost the bout - against Gjakova, as it so-happened,  with both reaching the final, never fun for their parents.

In the second bronze medal contest, Sanne Verhagen (NED) faced Kaja Kajzer (SLO). From the first hajime, the Dutch seemed to be under the pressure of Kajzer, but the latter couldn't find an opportunity to score. She eventually did, however, as just before the last minute, the Slovenian countered Verhagen for a waza-ari. As she was controlling the rest of the match, she was penalized once, but not enough for Verhagen to come back and win bronze. This is the second medal of the day for Slovenia.