15 years, that's starting to count. It was in fact from 2009, at the very beginning of the World Judo Tour adventure, that Abu Dhabi hosted its first tournament on the world circuit. Since then, the grand slams have followed one another at a steady pace, while other major international competitions have taken place here, including the junior, veteran and kata world championships and last May the senior world championships. This was the last major competition before the Paris Olympic Games.
It is therefore not surprising that Abu Dhabi is launching a new series of grand slams that will end in four years in Los Angeles. For three days, we discovered a new generation of champions who are building their future. We also saw judoka who are still keen to perform and find the resources needed to do great things.
The United Arab Emirates therefore had a magnificent success with their event. From an organisational point of view, everything went perfectly. From a sporting point of view, this was also the case with two gold medals that placed them at the top of the nations ranking for two days. What a performance! This is obviously the result of years of hard work by the national federation and all its partners, with the support of the International Judo Federation.
At the very end of the competition, it was the Netherlands who finished in first place, ahead of France and Germany, with the Emirates following closely behind, while the four countries each won two titles.
On this third day of competition, the titles went to: Mansur Lorsanov (IJF), Anna Monta Olek (GER), Michael Korrel (NED), Coralie Hayme (FRA) and Valerii Endovitskii (IJF)
During the last ceremony, a beautiful moment of sharing and emotion took place with the end of the career as an international referee of Ms Akiko Amano (JPN), who today refereed for the last time on the World Judo Tour, after having officiated at three Olympic Games and many international events. She received a standing ovation by all her colleagues and the whole venue and flowers from Mr Haruki Uemura, President of the Kodokan, IJF Executive Committee Member, World and Olympic champion.
The next IJF events will take place on American soil with the Las Vegas World Championships Veterans (4-7 November) and Kata (9-10 November) and at the beginning of December (7-8 December) the famous Tokyo Grand Slam will be held and will close a season that we are not ready to forget.