Madina Taimazova arrived in Mongolia as the first seed and did not stop until the final. The other finalist of the Grand Slam in Ulaanbaatar is 32-year old Yoko Ono, ten years older than Taimazova. A world separates the two in terms of results, and also of styles. Ono is in the twilight of her career while Taimazova’s is dawning. It was the logical ending.
The scenario, from what we know of both, was the classic one, Ono attacking and Taimazova counterattacking. The IJF representative who notched up a waza-ari with ippon-ko-uchi-gari, did so well. Beyond her quality, what is most striking is Taimazova’s tactical intelligence and she has a lot of merit, for her age and against the Japanese school. As Ono began to attack anyway because time was running out, Taimazova finished off with a wonderful ura-nage, giving the veteran a reality check.
Maya Goshen is another product of the Israeli factory. Young and tough, Israel has a quarry. She got into the fight for bronze, but she lacked that bank of experience that Miriam Butkereit has. The German gave us the immense pleasure of avoiding the seventh golden score of the final block with an ippon that was worth a sixth grand slam medal. As for the second bronze, Uzbek Gulnoza Matniyazova defeated Kajaza Zere Bektaskyzy on penalties.
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