Azerbaijan and Japan take double gold in Qingdao

Japan and Azerbaijan have had an outstanding start of the 2015 Grand Prix in Qingdao. Both nations took two victories, Azerbaijan in the men’s division and Japan won two gold medals in the women. Mongolia’s Number one Sumiya Dorjsuren took the gold for women U57kg.

The first gold medal was for Azerbaijan today where Ilgar Mushkiyev had a strong day and came out of a pool with his countryman Orkhan Safarov. In the semi final he defeated Aibek Imashev in a tight match. In the final Dutchman Jeroen Mooren was Mushkiyev’s opponent. Mushkiyev had beaten Mooren five times before and the sixth would follow. But it was not a one sided match, as Mooren who’s in a good shape had his tactics prepared. Although he walked into a few penalties he came back into the match with waza-ari for yoko otoshi,  a point that Mushkiyev had already scored with an o-soto combination. The sumi gaeshi that Mushkiyev scored halfway the match was decisive.

Mushkiyev took his second Grand Prix victory in his career, but the last one was in 2012 in Baku.

Mooren who won this year in Glasgow won silver in Qingdao in 2009 as well, today he took his 15^th Olympic Qualification medal in his career.

Azerbaijan took another medal, even more surprising when Nijat Shikhalizada stunned World number two Tumurkhuleg Dorjsuren (MGL) in the U66kg final. Tumurkhuleg tried to throw Shikhalizada too high by … but Shikhalizada took over the Mongolian by a great Ura Nage. Davaadorj defeated Kim Lim-Whan in the semi final, the Korean won bronze against Matteo Piras of Italy. Kengo Takaichi won bronze against another Italian, Elio Verde. Italy lost 14 bronze medal bouts this year in the World Tour and won just five, a point to work on. Shikhalizada reached the final by a victory against Kengo Takaichi in the semi final. This year he also won the Grand Prix in Baku and is now even more stable in the top 10 of the world.

Japan won two gold medals in both U48 as U52kg category. Current World Junior Champion Funa Tonaki recently won the Kodokan Cup in Japan as well and is in a good shape. The Japanese judoka was fought against Urantsetseg Munkhbat who became World Champion 2013 in Rio de Janeiro. She won the IJF World Masters in Rabat this year and Grand Prix in Tashkent and recently added the Grand Slam in Paris but never fought the tiny Japanese talent who struck with a koso soto and surprised Grand Slam winner of Paris with her drive to win.

Another surprising but exiting final was between Gulbadam Babamuratova of Turkmenistan and Yuka Nishida  of Japan. Babamuratova became fifth at the 2015 World Championships and won the Grand Prix Tashkent. Yuka Nishida became World Champion in 2010 in Tokyo and won the Kodokan Cup in 2015 at the year of her comeback. She dominated the match with her strong seoi nages. She hit her one minute for the end with a beautiful drop seoi nage for a direct ippon. It was for the last time in 2012 when she won a World Tour event (Paris). Obviously she faces severe competition of triple World Champion Misato Nakamura to qualify for Rio.

The gold for women U57kg was for Sumiya Dorjsuren of Mongolia, the world’s number one faced Miryam Roper (GER) in the fina. Roper defeated Dorjsuren four times, and even this time Roper led the match in the beginning. But Dorjsuren came back and scored a yuko too. In the last minute the European Games bronze medallist couldn’t hold Dorjsuren who threw Roper by waza-ari and finished the match by oseikomi. The sixth victory for Dorjsuren this year, four in the World Tour: Tbilisi, Rabat, Ulaanbaatar and now Qingdao. She won in 2012 in Qingdao as well, a few months after the previous Olympic Games. For these Olympics she is among the favourites with World Champion Kaori Matsumoto (JPN) who she defeated this year in Ulaanbaatar.