Maryna Cherniak simply takes over winstreak for Ukraine

Maryna Cherniak of Ukraine won her second Grand Prix title with victory over World Championships participant Xiong Yao (CHN) in the U48kg final. Xiong, who finished fifth at the Asian Games and seventh at the Tokyo Grand Slam last year, opened the scoring by rolling over her Ukrainian opponent who had failed with a uchi-mata attempt for a waza-ari score.

European Championships bronze medallist Cherniak defeated her fellow finalist by ippon after 90 seconds with a ko-soto to strike first for Ukraine in The Hague. Cherniak has shown that her country has two world-class judoka in the sport’s lightest weight category as Daria Bilodid (UKR), the youngest world champion of all time, who is currently training in Japan, has a domestic colleague who herself knows how to star on the IJF World Judo Tour.

In the first semi-final Abu Dhabi Grand Slam bronze medallist LI Yanan (CHN) picked up her third shido for passivity which sent Cherniak into the gold medal contest. In the second semi-final XIONG threw IJF World Judo Tour debutant Sakagami Aya (JPN) with an ippon-seoi-nage for her second and match-winning waza-ari score.

The first bronze medal contest was won by 21-year-old Kodokan Cup bronze medallist Sakagami who held down 2017 Ekaterinburg Grand Slam silver medallist Sabina Giliazova (RUS) with a yoko-shiho-gatame. Sakagami got an unfamiliar looking Japanese team off to a strong start as the youthful squad have been drafted in this week for the Netherlands but are some way down the pecking order domestically and will be watching from the stands in Osaka next week. 

The second bronze medal was won by Tashkent Grand Prix winner Distria Krasniqi (KOS) who dispatched LI after just 19 seconds. The in-form Kosovo judoka won with a spectacular sasae-tsurikomi-ashi for the maximum score to win her third consecutive medal on the IJF World Judo Tour.