"Personally, I think today’s competition brought us better judo than yesterday and the outcome was quite interesting. Daria Davydova in -63kg pocketed the first gold for host country Russia, also the Mongolian Bold made some nice performances towards her road to the bronze medal. Men’s -73kg was for me the most exciting category. Italian Olympic champion Basile performed well but eventually lost the gold in the final to Tommy Macias, bringing the Swedish judoka back into the spotlight after a lesser period. Also, Behruzi Khojazoda (TJK) showed a strong performance taking bronze.
In the -70kg Marie Eve Gahie of France was top of her category. She is so powerful and stands strong on the mat. After her lesser performance in Marrakech last week, Assmaa Niang (MAR) took a bronze here which is good since she missed some medal podiums lately by ending fifth. The final bout for the -81kg category was more or less an expected one. However, also the two bronze medal fights were very intense. Both bronze medalists, Briand (CAN) and Maisuradze (GEO) did well, the latter winning his first medal on the Grand Slam. For Briand this medal is also a confirmation of his growth on the World Judo Tour. But also, for the Canadian athletes so far, this Grand Slam has been a success.
Another important point is that today we had a female athlete of Afghanistan participating on the World Tour, which I think is worth mentioning.
Overall, I noticed also a lot of shidos but saw better ippons than yesterday. Many Golden Scores also, long ones as well. Sometimes five minutes, even in the final block. For me this is clearly a sign the level of the athletes increases and the standard between both opponents is the same.”