Golden Michaela Polleres seems unstoppable

Michaela Polleres is on a roll with another gold medal in the IJF World Tour, this time in Tashkent’s Grand Slam. The final was extra juicy against double World Champion Barbara Matic of Croatia. Olympic silver medallist Michaela Polleres (AUT) continued her winning run following victory at the Masters in Jerusalem in December with an assured performance at -70kg.

Before the final began, it was the eighth time that the two athletes were to meet, with a 4-3 lead for Polleres. With Matic being double world champion and world number one and Polleres being world number three, we could expect a tight match. With a little more than a minute gone, the strongest attack came from the Austrian with a ura-nage that was close to scoring but with not quite the right landing.

It seemed obvious that Matic did not look comfortable with Polleres’ kumi-kata. As the golden score was unrolling, Polleres now seemed less active but as Matic dropped on her knees and Polleres remained standing, the latter could apply a sumi-gaeshi that put Matic on her side for waza-ari. So, it was gold for Polleres and a 5-3 lead now on their personal tally.

Once again, she defeated all of her opponents with positive scores but she was made to work hard in the final, where she faced current world champion Matic (CRO). Both players looked as sharp as ever in the preliminaries and produced some of the day’s best judo. The two were inseparable during normal time but in golden score, Polleres capitalised on a mistake from her opponent, throwing her from her knees to earn her 15th World Tour medal, but surprisingly her first grand slam gold.

Uzbekistan had one more medal chance as Gulnoza Matniyazova qualified for the first match for a bronze medal, against Nataliia Chystiakova (UKR), but it was the latter who took the lead with an o-uchi-gari for waza-ari. Matniyazova was very close to scoring as well with a nice seoi-nage but she didn't get the 90° landing, so no score. As the end of the match was around the corner, Gulnoza Matniyazova raised her game and produced a superb movement that was awarded ippon, literally snatching the bronze medal from Chystiakova, much to the delight of the crowd.

Germany, particularly on fire from the start of the competition, had another medal chance as Giovanna Scoccimarro (GER) took on Anna Bernholm (SWE) in the second match for a bronze medal but being penalised three times meant Scoccimarro had to bow out. The bronze medal was for Anna Bernholm today.