D.Amartuvshin, D.Altansukh seize bronze medals
The World Judo Masters 2018, the invite-only season finale, saw Olympic and world champions battle it out at the Guangzhou Arena in China on December 15 and 16.
The last stop for the IJF World Judo Tour this season was held with 231 judokas from 53 countries. The Mongolian team, consisting of nine men and three women, with two bronze medals.
One of the bronze medals was earned by former world silver medallist D.Amartuvshin who lost to Georgia’s Abu Dhabi Grand Slam winner Amiran Papinashvili in the semi-final but took bronze with a victory over Dusseldorf Grand Slam bronze medallist Eric Takabatake from Brazil. The contest looked like it was designed for the Brazilian judoka but D.Amartuvshin had other ideas and produced the only score in the very last second to win his third World Judo Masters bronze medal. He won with buzzer-beating waza-ari score from an o-uchi-gari.
Three-time Grand Slam bronze medallist D.Altansukh grasped the second bronze for Mongolia in the men’s 66 kg event. He held down Kazakh judoka Yeldos Zhumakanov with a kuzure-kesa-gatame for 20 seconds and ippon. Zhumakanov, who noticeably limped onto the mat with a heavily taped right foot, was powerless as he was consigned to defeat by his Mongolian opponent.
In the men’s 73 kg, 2016 World Judo Masters silver medallist G.Odbayar lost to Canada’s 2017 Tokyo Grand Slam silver medalist Arthur Margelidon in the semi-final and again to Georgia’s Rio 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Lasha Shavdatuashvili in the bronze medal contest.
In the first semi-final for the women’s 48 kg event, world champion M.Urantsetseg had to tap out to Olympic bronze medallist and former world champion Kondo Amifrom Japan in golden score. M.Urantsetseglet a bronze medal slip when she lost to European champion Irina Dolgovafrom Russia. Urantsetseg tied in fifth place with Serbia’s Tashkent Grand Prix bronze medallist Milica Nikolic.
D.Sumiya (57 kg) and B.Mungunchimeg (63 kg) ended their game on the first day, both placing in 7th place.
Japan finished day one in top spot with three gold medals as Maruyama Joshiro (66 kg), Tsunoda, Natsumi (52 kg) and Yoshida Tsukasa (57 kg) all went unbeaten. Kosovo, Russia, France and Azerbaijan also tasted victory in Guangzhou in a scintillating day of unpredictable and compelling judo.