Barbara Matic already on Olympic form

The final for women U70kg at the Grand Slam in Tbilisi Sanne van Dijke and Barbara Matic looked to be fairly even at the beginning but the Croatian double world champion had a look of total commitment and enjoyment on her face and she rolled underneath the Dutch number 1 with a seoi-otoshi for ippon to take the gold. She almost made it look easy, almost.

Through the first couple of rounds the top 4 of the category, Van Dijke (NED), Matic (CRO), Teltsidou (GRE) and Butkereit (GER) forged their way forward towards the final block. Van Dijke and Matic particularly can be almost guaranteed to wreak havoc among the less well decorated opposition, their consistency being confirmed over and over again on the Tour.

That fight for bronze was over almost before it began though. Butkereit, having arrived 2-0 down to Scoccimarro from previous World Judo Tour meetings, didn’t hesitate for a single moment, attacked with an uchi-mata which forced Scoccimarro to bail out. Butkereit latched on and spun her over tying her up in knots to hold for 20 seconds and win by ippon before even half a minute had elapsed. It was a confident win and almost certainly secures her spot in Paris this summer.

The second bronze medal contest was fought by Teltsidou and Coughlan. More accurately, it was a whitewash in favour of the Greek who threw immediately after ‘hajime’ with a massive left sided tsuri-goshi. Coughlan will be disappointed with the result but she takes away valuable points, edging closer to seeding at the Games while Teltsidou puts the frighteners on all opposition, throwing bigger and faster than most ever do on the WJT.

All 4 reached the quarter-final stages with little to worry about. In pool B, Butkereit’s opposition there was Aoife Coughlan (AUS) who sits just outside Olympic seeding in the qualification list, needing to place higher than 7th to improve her position. The quarter-final is a guarantee of at least 7th place and so one more win, whether in the quarter-final or the repechage, is all she needed to increase her ranking points, to possibly join -63 kg teammate Haecker in a seeding position at the Games and make history for Australia.

Van Dijke won her quarter against Pogacnik (SLO) on shidos and Matic won hers against Jager (NED), so that was the one and two safely through to the semi-finals but Teltsidou and Butkereit were not so obedient to the ranking, the Greek beaten by Butkereit’s teammate and the German beaten by Coughlan, giving the Australian a new set of points to tick off a big part of today’s goal.

In the semi-finals Coughlan looked like the sure-fire winner in waiting but with just 3 seconds to go she was dropped under by the Dutch Olympic medallist for a reviewed but confirmed waza-ari, against the run of play. Matic then followed suit to line-up the highest quality final possible, dropping Scoccimaro into the bronze medal contest to fight her compatriot.