Majlinda Kelmendi and Andreea Chitu divide the medals

Kossovo frontrunner Majlinda Kelmendi captured the Grand Slam of Abu Dhabi. As a remake of the last World Championships in Chelyabinsk, the final of the day opposed the world number one and double World Champion, Majlinda Kelmendi and Romanian Andreea Chitu who won the last Judo Grand Prix in Tashkent a couple of weeks ago.

With her World champion red back number perfectly attached to her judogi, Kelmendi once again looked untouchable throughout the day, even if the French Euranie impeached her to develop her explosive judo. After two minutes, Chitu, being under the pressure of the world number one, received a first penalty for passivity. Chitu put all her power in a risky uchi-mata attempt, from where Kelmendi easily escaped to counter attack with her own left-handed uchi-mata for waza-ari. And once again, the 23-year-old from Kosovo won a major title. Who will be able to stop her?

For the first bronze medal fight, Joana RAMOS (POR), one of the top eight seeded athletes faced Natalia Kuztiutina (RUS), world number four, European champion (Budapest 2013) and bronze medal at the world Championships, in Chelyabinsk this summer. After a few seconds the Russian already scored a waza-ari with a shoulder movement and then could control the fight before immobilizing the Portuguese for ippon.

The second bronze medal fight saw MA Yingnan (CHN) and Annabelle EURANIE (FRA) fighting for a place on the podium. Much smaller than her opponent, MA did not seem to be afraid of EURANIE and her long arms and legs until the last 30 seconds when the French launched a last uchi-mata for waza-ari.