Sergiu Toma leads UAE to glory at Grand Slam Abu Dhabi with Olympics passage

Ivaylo Ivanov and Sergiu Toma, in blue, fight it out in the 81Kg final. Mona Al Marzooqi/ The National

The UAE judoka Sergiu Toma took a step towards securing a passage to next year’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after winning a silver medal at the Grand Slam Abu Dhabi.

The Moldovan-born world No 7, in blue, clinched the solitary medal for the host nation in the International Judo Federation’s penultimate Grand Slam of the year at the Ipic Arena on Day 2 of the competition yesterday.

Toma went down to Bulgarian Ivaylo Ivanov, who created a piece of history by winning the country’s first-ever Grand Slam gold, in the 91-kilogramme final. Toma was penalised with shido for passivity and then a second for the same offence at the halfway point before Ivanov scored off a waza-ari. Ivanov received a shido for a false attack but Toma was penalised again for passivity with 90 seconds left before a second waza-ari for the Bulgarian settled the contest.

The UAE did not find success with rest of the squad with the Emiratis Muhanad Al Ameri (60kg), Khalifa Al Hosani and Rashad Al Mashjari (both 66kg), and Mohammed Adel Al Amro (81kg) making first-round exits. Vadim Bocan reached the second before losing to Igor Wandtke of Germany and Victor Scvortov went down to Yinjirigala Sai of China, in the third round, both in the 73kg.

The UAE will be hoping for another medal or two from Mihail Marchitan (90kg) and Ivan Remarenco (100kg) in today’s final day of the competition. However, nobody celebrated winning a gold medal as much as Laura Koch of Germany. She won her second Grand Slam gold in Abu Dhabi while recording her first victory over Netherland’s Kim Polling in six meetings.

“I was over the moon because I never beat Kim even as recently as in the European Games three weeks ago,” said Koch, who has been named in the Germany judo squad for Rio. “I feel I’m getting on top of my game and at the right time, too.” Koch, 25, travelled with the Germany team for the London Olympics as a training partner and won a silver medal at the World Championships in Rio the following year.

France’s Clarisse Agnegenou, 23, was another Rio-bound judoka to score victory in Abu Dhabi last night. She took just over a minute to get the better of German Martyna Trajdos by ippon. “It was my first fight after suffering an elbow injury at the World Championships in August. So I’m glad to come here and win a gold medal,” she said.

South Korea top the medal table with three gold medals followed by France (1 gold and 1 bronze), Germany (1g-2s-1b), Russia (1-1-1), Georgia (1-0-1) and Bulgaria (1-0-0).

Results

Women finals

48kg: Irina Dolgova (Rus) bt Ebru Sahin (Tur).

52kg: Annabelle Euranie (Fra) bt Erika Miranda (Bra).

57kg: Kim Jan-di (Kor) bt Chen Ling Lien (Tpe)

63kg: Clarisse Agbegnenou (Fra) bt Martyna Trajdos (Ger)

70kg: Laura Koch (Ger) bt Kim Polling (Ned)

Men finals

60kg: Amiran Papinashvili (Geo) bt Tsogtbaater Tsendochir (Mgl)

66kg: An Ba-ul (Kor) Arsen Galstyan (Rus)

73kg: An Chang-rim (Kor) bt Igor Wandtke (Ger)

81kg: Ivaylo Ivanov (Bul) bt Sergiu Toma (UAE)

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