-52kg: A Draw of Two Halves

In the second quarter Kocher (SUI) should have respected the ranking but she lost to the young up-and-coming Azerbaijani Valiyeva and she in turn lost to the Mongolian in the quarter-final.

The bottom half of the draw went almost exactly to plan. Kadamboeva’s teammate Keldiyorova didn’t slip up at all and unlike the top half, the bottom half did bathe in Uzbek colours. The semi-final between double Olympic medallist Odette Giuffrida (ITA) and the ever more consistent Keldiyorova (UZB) was quite a trial. Plenty of unfinished attacks from both and scrappy gripping but in the end an unplanned and well-felt moment gave rise to a waza-ari that sent Giuffrida to the bronze medal contest to face the giant slayer, Dimitrova, the judoka who had ended Pupp’s day.

Dimitrova knew she had constructed a special day for herself, with ippon against the Uzbek in the quarter-final after 8 minutes of hard judo, dealing with Valiyeva convincingly in the repechage final, taking two waza-ari scores. Facing Giuffrida is not for the faint of heart but Odette seemed stuck, not able to assert her usual dominance. Her confidence is inspiring but today it was shaken and the 21 year old Bulgarian, without more than a couple of continental open bronzes to her name, stepped forward as of it were normal. She gave an impressive account of herself and when Giuffrida finally, under the increasingly loud instruction of her coach, countered for the bronze medal, at 8 and a half minutes in. It was a sukashi that Dimitrova will learn from but she is the heroine of this category today.

The second bronze was won by Kadamboeva. It was a mistake made by Kaleta (POL) that allowed Keldiyorova to walk away with the medal, a rookie mistake actually. The Uzbek entered for a low but not solid attack. The Pole stepped over her back and attempted to take the arm for a juji-gatame but Kadamboeva hadn’t finished and pulled the Pole through, completing the drive forward. It was almost a seoi-nage but what is more important than the label is the score and that was just what Uzbekistan needed.

We wrote recently about Marko Spittka’s emphasis on the development of women’s judo in Uzbekistan. He wasn’t joking. Two medals in the -52kg category in Baku is his evidence of good practice. We believe he and his team will continue and these medals will be part of the foundation for many, many more.

In the final, not content with being a finalist, Keldiyorova fought Lkhagvasuren (MGL) with a calm maturity, throwing fairly comfortably, rolling underneath the Mongolian to be the champion. It’s her 3rd grand slam gold on a CV that is growing. We said it was a draw of two halves and in the end it is a podium of two halves too, one half for Uzbekistan and one half for the rest!