Ami Kondo confirms her world level at Tokyo Grand Slam

The Grand Slam of Tokyo started well for Japan with a gold medal for lightweight prospect and former cadet world champion Ami Kondo. The youngster moved from being the future of Japanese judo to the present defeating world champion Munkhbat Urantsetseg of Mongolia to win the first gold medal of the day. Kondo burst into action in the final as her willingness to go out and force the action against Munkhbat made light of her youth and the quality of her opponent. Kondo started Japan’s dominance by catching the Mongolian with a foot sweep after two minutes for ippon.

The Japanese ace won all four of her contests by ippon including her semi-final against the Brazilian Olympic champion Sarah Menezes who was relentless pursued by the home judoka.

The contested was decided when Menezes attacked with a drop seoi-nage but Kondo countered and tried to apply shime-waza only to readjust and trap the Brazilian with a yoko-shiho-gatame which saw Menezes concede the contest by submitting. In the second semi-final the world champion Munkhbat bested former Junior World Championships winner Toda Miri (JPN) with an osoto-gari earning ippon with 90 seconds remaining.

The first bronze medal was won by two-time Asian Championships winner Yamagishi Emi s compatriot Toda Miri (JPN) could not compete due to injury. The second bronze medal was won by Sarah Menezes as Almaty Grand Prix winner Kristina Rumyantseva (RUS) sustained an injury in the previous repechage round and was unable to compete in the final block.