Anna Monta Olek takes the world ranking serious

Anna Monta Olek's (GER) season was great and clearly this new cycle is starting under the best auspices. Winner of the Prague European Open 2024 in September for her restart after the Paris Olympic Games break, she was a finalist in Kazakhstan in May, third in Baku and had won the grand prix in Portugal and Upper Austria earlier this year. This time she went for a gold medal at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam.

Despite these excellent results, Anna Monta Olek did not participate in the Olympic Games, for the simple reason that in Germany, in front of her was a certain Anna-Maria Wagner, today world number two and double world champion, and Alina Boehm, 8th in the world.

Anna Monta Olek is therefore getting back into the race, telling herself that in four years, there will be a place to take. In the final she faced Chloe Buttigieg (FRA), holder to date of a grand slam silver medal and two grand prix bronze medals. The Frenchwoman therefore had the possibility of opening her gold medal counter on the international circuit. Of course, Olek didn't think so. The final was going to be tough.

In the final, after one minute and thirty seconds, Buttigieg had already two shido to her name and Olek only one. In the next sequence, Olek pretended to launch an uchi-mata, but that was a trick and Buttigieg didn't see it coming. She was trapped with an o-uchi-gari on the other direction for waza-ari. Despite Buttigieg's attempts to come back, the victory went to Anna Monta Olek, who maybe a little more from today on represents a threat for her other teammates in Germany. For today she is the gold medallist.

In the first contest for the bronze medal Migle Julija Dudenaite (LTU) found Karla Prodan (CRO) for a place on the podium. The bronze medal went to Julija Dudenaite (LTU).

Raffaela Igl (GER) and Zanet Michaelidou (CYP) had one more chance to step on the podium. The first in action was Michaelidou who took the lead with o-soto-gari for waza-ari. Then she controlled the contest perfectly to win her first medal in a grand slam but also the first ever bronze medal in a grand slam for Cyprus.