Yarden Gerbi strangles for gold in Tashkent

Israelian 2013 World Champion Yarden Gerbi seems to be unstoppable. At the Grand Prix of Tashkent she proved that she is still at the highest stage of women's world judo. In the final she met Austrian Kathrin Unterwurzacher who was strangled by Gerbi, who added a second victory in a major IJF event with a week.

The Israeli champion said: “I really feel happy tonight. It was my goal to come in Astana and Tashkent and to win both gold medals. I’ve done it. This is really good. I won’t rest now. We have Japanese coach coming to Israel for a training camp. Hanna Martin from the US is also coming to my country next week. It’s good to have new training partners. And then I know that I’ll participate in two of this end of the year’s events in Asia, but I am not exactly sure which one from Abu Dhabi, Qingdao, Jeju or Tokyo.”

The first bronze medal fight opposed Mariana Silva BRA) and Germany's Martyna Trajdos (who's always good for a medal, and the first to score with a ko-uchi-gari for waza-ari really close to ippon, followed by another yuko a few seconds later. Martyna Trajdos was able to maintain the score until the end of the fight to win the bronze. The second bronze medal fight saw Mongolia's Munkhzaya TSEDEVSUREN and Isabel Puche (ESP) fight for a place on the podium of the Grand Prix. After one minute, Isabel Puche was the first to score a yuko. Then the fight entered into a more tactical phase until TSEDEVSUREN also scored a yuko 30 seconds before the end. Penalties having been distributed to both fighters, it was finally the Mongolian who won the medal with one less penalty than the Spanish judoka on the scoreboard.