MONGOLIAN JUDOKAS WIN TWO MEDALS IN TOKYO

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Our world champion M.Urantsetseg and the Olympic gold medalist N.Tuvshinbayar have won silver and bronze medals respectively at the Judo Grand Slam in Tokyo. The first day of the tournament, Ms Urantsetseg, who showed some indifferent form since becoming the first Mongolian woman to win a world judo title in August, bested junior world championship winner Miri Toda from Japan at the second semi final of the women’s -48kg event. However, at the final, our world number two judoka, who returned to the podium with a bronze medal at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last weekend, lost to former cadet world champion Ami Kondo, who won the first gold medal of the tournament. At the last day of the tournament, Tuvshinbayar beat S.Korean and Japanese wrestlers, before losing to world number three and European champion Lukas Krpalek from the Czech Republic. After that, Tuvshinbayar inflicted defeats for Sergey Samoilovich from Russia and Maxim Rakov from Kazakhstan to win a bronze medal at the men -100kg event. At this category, Krpalek narrowly defeated Junior World Junior World Championships gold medalist Kyle Reyes from Canada in an engrossing -100kg final. Japan, who won 27 medals in total, was followed in the medal table by South Korea and the Netherlands in the Grand Slam that took place at the sport’s birth place of Japan from November 29 to December 1. The judo Grand Slam offered the most world ranking points after an Olympic Games, World Championships and World Judo Masters, with 500 points for gold, 300 points for silver and 200 points for bronze along with a total of USD 150,000 at stake in prize money.