Miku Tashiro beats Tina Trstenjak for the eighth time

Three-time world medallist Tashiro Miku of Japan claimed Japan’s first gold medal at the Baku Grand Slam 2019 as the Japanese number one extended her perfect winning record over Olympic champion Tina Trstenjak of Slovenia.

Current world silver medallist Tashiro, who finished fifth at the Rio 2016 Olympics, forced Trstenjak to pick up two shidos and swiftly subdued the owner of the gold U63kg backpatch with a juji-gatame and the Japanese will be a leading contender on home soil for the World Championships in August.

In the first semi-final Trstenjak defeated European Games winner Martyna Trajdos (GER) who was disqualified after picking up three shidos. In the second semi-final Tashiro bested Tbilisi Grand Prix winner Sanne Vermeer (NED) by tapping out the Dutch judoka with shime-waza outside the contest area.

The first bronze medal contest was won by Abu Dhabi Grand Slam gold medallist Juul Franssen (NED) who beat colleague Vermeer by the smallest of margins as a single waza-ari was the difference after four minutes of competitive action. An opportunistic sode-tsurikomi-goshi gave the more experienced Dutch judoka a vital win and medal in the opening contest of the final block.

The second bronze medal was won by Trajdos who threw Ekaterinburg Grand Slam bronze medallist Bold Gankhaich (MGL) with a uchi-mata for a waza-ari score and wrapped up the win with osaekomi-waza as the Mongolian could not escape a kesa-gatame hold.