Gulbadam Babamuratova reaches historical height for her country

At the Grand Prix in Tashkent Gulbadam Babamuratova of Turkmenistan showed that her World Championships fifth-place was a sign of things to come as she not only secured her country’s first Grand Prix gold medal but also became the first female judoka from Turkmenistan to grace an IJF podium. Babamuratova dismissed surprise finalist Maria Ertl of Germany by two waza-ari with the second a robust makikomi effort to signal her country’s arrival on the Grand Prix podium U52kg.

In the first semi-final 23-year-old Budapest Grand Prix silver medallist Maria Ertl of Germany booked a place in the second Grand Prix final of her career by seeing off Tyumen Grand Slam runner-up MA Yingnan of China. The German judoka led after one minute by a waza-ari from a cutting piece of ashi-waza and that proved to be the only score of the contest.

In the second semi-final world bronze medallist Darya Skrypnik (BLR) was undone by Asian Games silver medallist Gulbadam Babamuratova (TKM) who finished fifth at the World Championships. Babamuratova prevailed by ippon after just 59 seconds and was assured of a place on the podium.

The first bronze medal was clinched by Olympic bronze medallist Priscilla Gneto (FRA) who stepped up her preparations for the Paris Grand Slam in two weeks’ time with a medal-winning display to bolster her world ranking. Gneto, 24, defeated Skrypnik by a waza-ari from an osoto-gari and was rarely threatened by the world number 25.

The second bronze medal was won by Gili Cohen (ISR) who saw off the challenge of beaten semi-finalist Ma. Cohen pressed forward and scored a waza-ari from a ko-uchi-gari with 38 seconds left only for Ma to respond by sweeping her opponent for her own waza-ari with one second left but the Chinese judoka had been penalised twice and the medal went to Israel.