Top final U66kg decided by Davaadorj

The only final at the Grand Slam in Paris between the two current Ranking leaders was the category U66kg where Davaadorj Tumurkhuleg (MGL-1) and Georgii Zantaraia (UKR-2) fought eachother. Now The Mongolian fighter is back at his number one position that he claimed in April this year, but lost. In total 6 fighters have been world ranking leader so far this year.

Despite his acrobatic skills, Georgii Zantaraia, couldn’t this time climb his way onto the top of the podium. But one must recognise that the longevity of his career is impressive as the Ukrainian was already world champion in 2009 in Rotterdam. But today Davaadorj Tumurkhuleg (MGL) was the strongest and the first yuko came from an o-uchi-gari, from which Zantaria almost escaped, but was enough to secure the title in Paris.

In the first semi-final Davaadorj defeated Nijat Shikhalizada (AZE) by a waza-ari while in the second semi-final Zantaraia stopped the progress of Takajo Tomofumi (JPN) on shido penalties.

In the first bronze medal contest Takajo rapidly took the advantage with a shoulder movement executed with the end of the sleeves for waza-ari against Sergiu Oleinic (POR). Even if the Portuguese was clearly dominated, he didn’t surrender and kept believing that he could still win the fight, but Takajo didn’t offer him that opportunity and scored a second waza-ari with a reverse seoi-nage just before the final gong. The second bronze medal went to Dovdon Altansukh (MGL) who held down Shikhalizada for 20 seconds with tate-shiho-gatame to win his country’s second medal in the -66kg category. With Azerbaijan Judo Federation Vice President and Beijing 2008 Olympic champion Elnur Mammadli looking on, he saw his charge lose out on the ground as Mongolia continued to impress on day one.