Mongolia's Amartuvshin Dashdavaa grabs first gold

The Mongolian lightweights in both men and women are dominating world judo over the last two years. Tashkent's final for Men U60kg saw Amartuvshin Dashdavaa face off against home judoka Diyorbek Urozboev (UZB). Strongly supported by an enthusiastic public, Urozboev quickly took the lead giving the impression to control the fight.

But this was definitely not the idea of Dashdavaa, who finally immobilized his opponent for ippon. The significance of the victory was apparent as the Mongolian looks to chase down world number one and world champion Ganbat Boldbaatar (MGL) in the race for Rio 2016.

In the first bronze medal fight, after less than a minute, Bakhrom INOYATOV (UZB) and Gumar Kyrgyzbayev of Kazakhstan had both scored a yuko. Engaging full power, the two athletes gave the impression that either fighter could win on either side, when Gumar Kyrgyzbayev scored a waza-ari, immediately followed by an immobilization but for no score. A few second later the Kazakh athlete scored again a yuko with a magical movement from which Inoyatov hardly escaped to avoid the ippon. KYRGYZBAYEV could then easily control the match to win the bronze medal. In the second bronze medal fight, Kherlen Ganbold (MGL) faced Sharafuddin LUTFILLAEV (UZB). And once again the Uzbek athlete was the first one to score a yuko with a ko-uchi-gari. LUTFILLAEV again scored a few second later but this time a waza-ari. Totally put out of balance by GANBOLD, the Uzbek was able to escape and return the situation to his advantage. But in the meanwhile, he was also penalised three times and then a fourth time for not respecting the limit of the fighting area, offering the victory to the Mongolian athlete.