Marusa Stangar claims two GPs gold medals in a row

Already a winner in Linz a week ago, Marusa Stangar arrived in Dushanbe full of confidence for the Grand Prix. Although not in the top four seeds of the category, she was able to take advantage of her first contests to get into the rhythm and reach the final. At 25, Marusa has reached the maturity that now allows her to tackle competitions on the international circuit with self-confidence and determination, climbing the ranking list positions one by one, to now be 19th in the world, a position that will not fail to evolve after the grand prix in Tajikistan.

Fifth in Ulaanbaatar in 2022 and fifth in Abu Dhabi in 2021, her last grand prix victory dating back to 2019 in Tashkent, Sabina Giliazova (AIN) found her way to the final to face Marusa Stangar.

Giliazova was the first in action, imposing her strong kumi-kata and trying to launch her uchi-mata. Stangar let the storm go by and waited for the next sequence on the ground to pin her opponent with a classic tate-shiho-gatame for ippon and so it was gold again for Marusa Stangar.

Mongolia secured a place on the podium thanks to Narantsetseg Ganbaatar (MGL) and Baasankhuu Bavuudorj (MGL). Such a match is always complicated. The athletes know each other perfectly well and both want to show that they have the supremacy of the category at home. With the Olympic Games looming on the horizon, this is not trivial. Only one competitor per weight category and per nation will go to Paris next year and Ganbaatar and Bavuudorj both have the same Olympic dream.

Despite that, they started the contest really looking for the score, with a collection of ippon-seoi-nage, sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi, o-soto-gari, tomoe-nage and other counter-attacks coming from both sides. Having committed a few infringements during normal time, the golden score started with Bavuudorj having two shido to her name, while Ganbaatar had been penalised only once. One minute into golden score, Ganbaatar launched an unstoppable ko-uchi-gari for ippon. She still has the lead in Mongolia.

Andrea Stojadinov (SRB) and Leyla Aliyeva (AZE) battled to complete the podium. In a very dynamic contest, Stojadinov took the lead with a waza-ari that she could hold on to until the gong to win her first medal in a grand prix. This one is bronze.