“It was the ippon show today! There were amazing throws, really great judo through all 5 categories. There has been highly technical judo too, not just power, although that has also been a very visible component, across all mats. The majority of the fights have been won by ippon.
We found two new Chinese heavyweight men in the draw. Shaotong Yuan hasn’t been seen on the World Judo Tour since 2019, but along with his teammate Yongjie Yin, it is great to have the men re-joining their women’s team at this level. Yuan one threw Rahmon (TJK) with a huge ura-nage utilising all the rotation possible to finish in a favourable position. Both Chinese heavyweights gave a good account of themselves, showing technical ability and a willingness to move fast no matter the opponent and this bodes well for their futures.
There have been so many fantastic throws today that we could almost write a list and create a gallery or even a text book of ‘how to do judo.’ Boehm’s (GER) o-goshi in round one was huge. Sampaio against Tatarchenko brought us a seoi-otoshi for ippon in just 8 seconds, for the Portuguese competitor. Boehm and Sampaio had a great fight together too, both attacking again and again with great technical work being done in tachi-waza and ne-waza, eventually finishing on the ground in favour of the German.
The leader of the pack today at -78 kg, though, was Wagner and in her first contest she needed only 15 seconds to enter with uchi-mata and finish with o-uchi-gari, one of many short contests today. short fight. I also observed her outstanding sleeve control to finish an uchi-mata against strong left-hander Powell(GBR).
There were two beautiful osoto-gari throws, from Kone (GER) against Yuan (CHN) and Batchaev (AIN) against Masters champion Puumaleinen (FIN). This second one was with the belt grip and Batchaev had to take a second breath to find a very powerful finish."
"We have to speak about the home athletes too and Rakhimov’s o-uchi-gari in the quarter-final against Tataroglu (TUR) was expertly executed. He found the right moment, encouraged the movement forward to give him the entry and concluded with relative ease. It was a real crowd-pleaser.
We cannot leave without speaking about Teddy, clearly refining his game towards the Olympic Games. He threw and controlled well all day and we really enjoyed his double step osoto-gari in the semi-final.”
The Dushanbe Grand Slam has come to an end with a day of incredible judo, showcasing both the power and the skill of the World Judo Tour heavyweights. The Tour now heads to Kazakhstan for the final grand slam of the qualification period.