Turkey's hopes for gold rested on 73 kilo contender Hasan Vanlioglu but Uzbekistan's Mirzahid Farmonov's beat him to it.
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Turkey’s hopes for gold on day two of the Antalya Grand Prix rested on 73 kilo contender Hasan Vanlioglu.
He was up against Uzbekistan’s Mirzahid Farmonov in the final, who had missed out on a medal in his last two fights in world judo.
The bout went to golden score during which Farmonov displayed some fantastic footwork to throw the Turk for Waza-Ari and end his dreams of gold.
“Even though the opponent in the final was very a strong and talented Turkish athlete, I overcame him. I am really happy about that, this is a victory not only for me but for the whole of Uzbekistan,” Farmonov said afterwards.
Austria’s world number three Kathrin Unterwurzacher was favourite for gold in the under 63 kilo category.
In the final she came up against Kazakhstan’s Marian Urdabayeva.
Unterwurzacher countered her opponent for a Waza-ari halfway through the contest before ending the bout later on with yet another counter, also scoring waza ari and landing her in an ippon scoring hold down.
Kathrin Unterwurzacher dominates category U63kg leading to gold in Antalya https://t.co/fqyytX9pcr Fifth Grand Prix victory #JudoAntalya2017 pic.twitter.com/NAUXHPyfCJ
— JudoInside.com (@JudoInside) April 8, 2017
The result: Gold for the Austrian and redemption for last week’s defeat in Tbilisi.
“Last week I made a big mistake as I lost the fight against the Italian girl. Today I also made some mistakes, but at the end of it I’m proud of the gold medal and it was enough,” Unterwurzacher said.
The other women’s gold went to Slovenia’s Anka Pogacnik in the under 70 kilo category after a ko-uchi-gari scoring waza-ari in golden score against Elvismar Rodriguez.
Anka Pogacnik grabs first IJF World Tour gold in #JudoAntalya2017 https://t.co/qJCQUDf2rh all three different medals at IJF level. pic.twitter.com/bKdZfwrObr
— JudoInside.com (@JudoInside) April 8, 2017
And the second men’s gold went to Russia in the under 81 kilo category as Stanislav Semenov used a dramatic counter-attack to beat his Korean opponent Soo-Keun Song.
Stanislav Semenov adds another gold for Russia in #JudoAntalya2017 https://t.co/6sqZfcKnWn pic.twitter.com/HtZ00VVqO9
— JudoInside.com (@JudoInside) April 8, 2017