Bavuudorj Baasankhuu arrives in Paris with red backpatch

Mongolia’s Bavuudorj Baasankhuu became the first major surprise of the opening day of the world championships in Abu Dhabi. The tiny lightweight surprised all her opponents and captured the world title in lightweight category and decided her internal battle with the experienced Ganbaatar. In the final she she had to deal with Italyé gold medal hope Assunta Scutto.

The speed was high in the final contest, highest seeded Scutto's showed her snappy o-uchi-gari and lightning fast seoi-otoshi techniques were all atttempted while Bavuudorj worked at the hips and with more dominant gripping. The Mongolian never skipped a beat, coming nowhere near being thrown and eventually, with only seconds left on the clock, she countered another seoi-otoshi attempt with a very tight sumi-gaeshi for ippon. Bavuudorj is the -48 kg world champion in this Olympic year and will arrive in Paris with the red backpatch on. She is the first Mongolian woman to win the world championships since Munkhbat won in Rio De Janeiro in 2013.

Competitor Ganbaatar (MGL) was next to fall in a day full of surprises. She was thrown for waza-ari with de-ashi-harai by Tugce Beder (TUR) at 2 and a half minutes but she doubled down and held her for ten seconds almost on the bell to find herself in a senior world semi-final.

Scutto defeated Swedish talent Tara Babulfath in the semi final and was in no mind to give up the opportunity to reach her first world final and she threw within the first minute for a small score. Although she was later almost held by the teenager, she managed to keep her score and at full time Scutto advanced to the final with a look of relief on her face.

Tara Babulfath (SWE) is only just 18, young but not inexperienced. She’s collecting scalps, knowledge and notoriety on a monthly basis and following gold at the Baku Grand Slam and bronze in Tashkent she is in contention for a Games ticket. In the blue continental quota zone ahead of the Abu Dhabi World Championships, a good day, a very good day would push her to not far outside the seedings for Paris.

Babulfath began slowly, passing Mexico’s Edna Carrillo with a hold down in golden score. She kept grinding out the exchanges and took a similar win against Tanzer (AUT) next but in normal time. Osae-komi again against Martinez Abelenda (ESP) in the round of 16 meant a top 8 finish no matter what happened next.

With the number one seed through, the number two, on the bottom half of the draw, had a lot of work to do to match her but she set about doing just that. Abuzhakynova's (KAZ) first contest set a tough precedent for the day. She threw Ersin (TUR) for a waza-ari with o-uchi-gari but was then caught with an equaliser, a fast seoi-otoshi. It wasn’t until 45 seconds into golden score that the Kazakh came up with an immense utsuri-goshi, throwing for ippon and moving forward.

Bronze medal fights

The first bronze medal was going to head home with either Beder (TUR) or Abuzhakynova (KAZ). The latter already has a world bronze medal and knows what it takes to get there. Competing against the fast-footed Turk is never easy but Abuzhakynova countered an ashi-waza attempt early to put the first score on the board. Beder continued to throw in a number of sutemi-waza attacks but none strong enough to unbalance the Kazakh. She changed tack and went for a kata-guruma but Abuzhakynova was ready for that too and caught Beder with a beautiful sukashi to seal the result.

Costa (POR) and Babulfath (SWE) fought for the second bronze medal. The contest began evenly but Babulfath gets more dangerous the deeper a fight goes. Her ability to close the space down in ne-waza and clamp her opponents down, inescapably, is becoming something special and against Costa she did this again. She freed her trapped leg and held on with every ounce of strength she had to become a first year junior with a senior world bronze medal.