JUDO: Australia’s Rio 2016 hopefuls have found the going tough at the extremely strong Baku Grand Slam event in Azerbaijan over the weekend.
Two third round finishes were the best results for the Australian contingent who were looking to gain valuable ranking points as Rio draws closer.
After securing a bye to the second round, -66kg fighter Nathan Katz scored a win over Iran’s Alireza Khojasteh after two Waza-ari’s in quick succession. He was up early in his third round fight with Kenneth Van Gesbeke of Belgium before eventually going down three Shido penalties to two.
Eoin Coughlan also had a first round bye in the -81 division before edging local Ziya Namazov in a fight that lasted the full five minutes. In another encounter that went the distance, Coughlan could not move past Israel’s Asaf Chen who won by Yuko.
Needing a strong result at both the Baku event and next week’s competition in Almaty to push his claims for Olympic qualification, -90kg fighter Sebastian Temesi scored a first round win by Waza-ari over Chile’s Rafael Romo. He wasn’t as successful in his next fight, losing by ippon to Abderrahmane Benamadi of Algeria. Fellow -90kg representative Diego Barreto had a first round bye before being beat by Nikoloz Sherazadishvili of Spain after four Shido penalties.
Josh Katz went down to Colombia’s Javier Guedez 2-0 in the opening round of the -60kg division while a bye saw Jake Bensted move through to the second round of the -73kg division where he was beaten by Dirk Van Tichelt.
Also receiving a first round bye was Duke Didier but he was unsuccessful against Iran’s Javed Mahjoub, losing by ippon in 52 seconds in the -100kg class, while Nicolas Bernard suffered the same fate against Rafael Silva of Brazil in the +100 division.
Top 14 ranked -63kg fighter Katharina Haecker went down to Japan’s Megumi Tsugane after getting a bye through to the second round while in the -48kg class Chloe Rayner lost by ippon in her opening fight against Aurore Urania Climence of France.
Attention now turns to next week’s Grand Slam event in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which is the last major event to accrue ranking points before the Olympic qualification period closes on May 31.
Rayner, Temesi, Bernard, Didier and Barreto will be in action at the event.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au