Clarisse Agbégnénou wins her 10th Grand Slam success in Tashkent
If Margaux Pinot stumbled on the last step, Clarisse Agbégnénou was conquering throughout the day to achieve a new success, the 10th, in the Grand Slam.
For the second day of the Tashkent Grand Slam, the Blues were few in number on the starting line, but with one key card however: Clarisse Agbégnénou. The Olympic champion started with an ippon over Yana Makretskaya, then did the same against Cristina Cabaña Pérez, a successful start to the competition.
Better, she did it again in the quarter-finals against Iva Oberan: third match, third ippon for the Habs, untouchable. But things were to get tougher in the semi-finals against former Asian champion Nami Nabekura. A tough fight, in which the two judokas came close to going out on penalties, and which went as far as the Golden Score before the Frenchwoman placed a submission to advance to the final.
Facing her, another Japanese woman, Momo Tatsukawa. And this offered a confrontation worthy of a final, hampering the judo of the Frenchwoman, who was unable to find the opening and was pushed to the Golden Score. There, she did it again with a perfect immobilization in an arm lock, to achieve nothing less than her 10th Grand Slam success. Unquestionably, the best in the +63 kg category is French, and her name is Clarisse Agbégnénou.
Margaux Pinot will not be present at the Olympic Games, that is a certainty. But she also started her Grand Slam with a bang: first ippon on Khurshida Razzokberdieva, then a second against Luana Carvalho, both times before the end. A start to the atomic competition, and it wasn’t over.
In the quarter-finals, the affair was not a foregone conclusion against the reigning European vice-champion Madina Taimazova. But here again, an ippon fell thanks to a quality me waza. The experienced Gulnoza Matniyazova represented a choice opponent in the semi-finals, not enough to impress Margaux Pinot, who made her rival crack, sanctioned by three penalties. Headed to the final, without a single Golden Score, impressive.
Opposite, she found Miriam Butkereit for a revenge of the final of the Grand Slam in Tel Aviv last year, won by the Frenchwoman. But while Margaux Pinot seemed good in her fight, she seemed to be gaining the upper hand, she was caught on a counter shortly before the end and had to see the damage: ippon and defeat in the final. No 5th Grand Slam success for the Frenchwoman, who nevertheless recalled her talent.
2024-03-03 04:34:53
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