French Blandine Pont steps up to Grand Prix level gold

The first final of the day opposed two French athletes, as the U23 2020 European Champion Mélanie Vieu faced Blandine Pont, also a bronze medallist at the u23 European Championships.

Team France performed so well during the Olympic Games but also has an amazing reservoir of top athletes, especially among the women. This was demonstrated again today with the final victory of Blandine Pont (FRA) who upset Vieu, winning with three clear shido.

Young Katharina Tanzer (AUT) was opposed to the experienced Milica Nikolic of Serbia, who has so far already won 17 medals on the World Judo Tour. The first minute was mainly spent on the floor, with a nice piece of ne-waza from the Austrian, but she could not conclude the match there. Until the last 45 seconds the match seemed quite balanced but Nikolic produced a strong piece of work from the end of the sleeves to score a waza-ari, completed with an immobilisation for the ippon.

For the second bronze medal contest, Amber Gersjes (NED), junior world champion in 2017 in Zagreb, met Natasha Ferreira (BRA) for a place on the podium. With a waza-ari to each at the end of normal time, the competitors entered golden score. After three minutes of extra time, Gersjes scored a second waza-ari with a left-handed uchi-mata, to win her first medal in a Grand Prix.