Davaadorj beats Japanese starlet for more Mongolian gold

World Judo Masters bronze medallist Davaadorj Tumurkhuleg (MGL) finally topped the podium at his home Grand Prix having won bronze and then silver in the two previous editions. Davaadorj defeated 17-year-old wonderkid Abe Hifumi (JPN) in the final to win Mongolia’s third gold medal of the opening day.

Tokyo Grand Slam winner Abe, who had the goal of capturing a first Grand Prix medal of his young career, achieved that with a silver medal as Davaadorj swept him with a beautiful piece of ashi-waza and bowed to all sides of the venue before running off the tatami to celebrate his gold medal. Davaadorj extended his head-to-head record against ABE to 2-0 having beat the Japanese starlet at the Dusseldorf Grand Prix earlier this year.  

In the first semi-final Davaadorj triumphed against European u23 Championships silver medallist Andraz Jereb (SLO) with a yuko and waza-ari going unanswered by the Slovenian fighter. In the second semi-final teenager ABE bested former Tbilisi Grand Prix bronze medallist BATTSETSEG Batgerel (MGL) by ippon after opening the scoring a with a yuko.

The first bronze medal was won by Olympic champion Arsen Galstyan (RUS) who scored a yuko with 90 seconds left to add to his earlier waza-ari which came from a low and piercing tai-otoshi. The second bronze medal went to Tashkent Grand Prix silver medallist Dovdon Altansukh (MGL) who was successful against world number 39 Jereb by a yuko which was the only score of the contest.