-48kg Gold: Koga (JPN)
In the final, Wakana Koga scored yuko against Zhuang Wenna (CHN) with her favorite ouchi-gari right at the start of the match and fought tactically until the end of regular time to secure the gold.
After the event, Koga said: "Since this tournament serves as a pathway to the world judo championships for us, I am incredibly happy to have won here. After watching my opponent's contests today, I knew she was a very powerful athlete. To ensure I wasn't overwhelmed by her strength and momentum, I stayed focused, stuck strictly to my grips and fought hard. Because this tournament awards crucial Olympic qualification points, I was determined to achieve the best result possible here and I will carry that same drive into the next tournaments as I take on the challenging path all the way to the Olympics."
-52kg: Abe (JPN)
The crowd would have loved to see Uta Abe go up against Odette Giuffrida (ITA) in the final. Abe, of course, would have been the favorite but the Italian is particularly good at footsweeps and could pull off a surprise or two. But it wasn’t meant to be. Giuffrida had to give a walkover because she was injured in the semifinal.
Said Abe: “It had been about half a year since my last match, so I was a little nervous. However, I managed to get my feel for the contest back and it turned out to be a good performance. We were able to secure Olympic qualification points while winning the tournament. I think we made a good start towards the Los Angeles Olympics. My next competition will be the World Judo Championships in Baku and I will work hard to win there.”
-57kg: Omori (JPN)
The final was a replay of the Paris Grand Slam -57kg final except this time, it was Akari Omori rather than Sarah Leonie Cysique (FRA) who won. Omori capitalized on a big mistake Cysique made at the edge of the mat. Although Cysique was already on the ground, instead of covering up and waiting for the referee to call “matte”, she stood up. This allowed Omori to take her down for ippon.
Omori later said: "While I am taking a moment to savour this victory in Ulaanbaatar, I know I still have areas to work on. The key to my success today was reflecting on my performance at a competition in Japan just last week; I spent the last seven days fixing my mistakes, developing specific strategies and training hard to bridge the gap that comes with competing abroad. Looking ahead, nothing is scheduled next just yet but if I am given the opportunity to compete in another grand slam before the world championships, I want to take it, win another title and carry that momentum into the worlds to aim for gold."
