Agbegnenou prolongs title in Jeju

French Clarisse Agbegnenou won the sixth Grand Prix title of her outstanding career as she beat Italian Tashkent Grand Prix winner Edwige Gwend for U63kg gold. Three-time consecutive world medallist Agbegnenou, who only turned 23 in October, stretched her lopsided head-to-head record to an astonishing 7-0 against the Italian.

The Frenchwoman lifted Gwend up with a trademark ura-nage but given the volume and result of their previous meetings the Italian judoka was able to avoid giving away a score as she had her elbows down and kept her back upright. Gwend was penalised with a shido for going out of the area and that was the only time that the scoreboard was in action during the four minutes.   

In the first semi-final Agbegnenou profited from the lack of awareness of former Tyumen Grand Slam silver medallist Ekaterina Valkova (RUS) who was penalised twice for going out of the area. Valkova was able to stop Agbegnenou from scoring which is a rare achievement on the IJF World Judo Tour but the French fighter was in command of the contest despite being unable to produce a score. In the second semi-final Gwend countered an attack from Abu Dhabi Grand Slam bronze medallist Anicka Van Emden (NED) for a waza-ari score before holding down her opponent with a tate-shiho-gatame for 15 seconds and a place in the -63kg final.

The first bronze medal was won by Tyumen Grand Slam bronze medallist Alice Schlesinger (GBR) who came from behind to beat Van Emden. The Dutch fighter led by a yuko from a ouchi-gari but Schlesinger has character and battled back to throw her opponent with a koshi-guruma for a waza-ari and that’s how the contest finished as Britain won their first medal of day two. The second bronze medal was claimed by Ulaanbaatar Grand Prix winner Tsend-Ayush Tserennadmid (MGL) who showed the trademark Mongolian fighting spirit to defeat Valkova. It was the Russian fighter who struck first after 20 seconds with a waza-ari from a picturesque yoko-tomoe-nage. Valkova was penalised twice in quick succession for passivity and then for going out before Tsend-Ayush scored a waza-ari from an osoto-gari and those needless indiscretions from the Russian came back to haunt her as the contest was decided on shido penalties.