Tough battles in Tbilisi U60kg at day one

The men’s U60kg division will be great to watch at the first day of the Grand Slam in Tbilisi. Georgia’s big man in U60kg is home favourite and number one seed Giorgi Sardalashvili In Georgia no-one will want to be on the ground with him. In the final of Tashkent Sardalashvili lost to Ruziev and in Tbilisi they are likely to meet in the semi-final.

Ruziev’s style is that of a well drilled workaholic, moving through the stages of each technique methodically and with great force. His first fight in Uzbekistan was finished with sode-guruma-jime, applied during his 3rd attempt to complete the Fallon roll, a 3rd attempt which followed the second and first without break, eating up a total of one minute and 20 seconds of continuous ne-waza. Yadav (IND) did well to defend it for so long but eventually ran out of steam.

Fifth seed, Doston Ruziev (UZB) is certainly to look out for. In Tashkent he won gold, every contest won with a positive score. He worked equally confidently in standing positions as he did on the ground but 4 out of his 5 contests were won on the ground, 3 by osae-komi-waza and one by shime-waza.

Azeri lightweight Turan Bayramov is the title defender on Friday at the opening day in Tbilisi. Bayramov who is in a heavy battle with Balabay Aghayev is the number 13 on the world ranking list. Aghayev is ranked eighth. In almost each category Azerbaijan have double athletes in Georgia. Bayramov won bronze in 2022 and can make a hattrick in Tbilisi and become the most successful athlete of Azerbaijan in Tbilisi ever.