Thrilling competition on Day 1 of 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on the eve of World Judo Day

[AliAhmed]

There was some thrilling judo on day one of the 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam in the United Arab Emirates, with fair play centre stage for all on the eve of World Judo Day.Our Woman of the Day was Nora Gjakova of Kosovo. Displaying some brilliant Judo in her semi-final, she overcame Lien Chen-Ling of Chinese Taipei to lead her to the Gold medal contest in the -57kg category, in which she demonstrated a Koshi-guruma attack that threw Anastasiia Konkina of Russia for Ippon. This was her first Gold medal at a Grand Slam on the IJF world tour."Well it really feels amazing, I almost forgot how it is to be on the podium, because of the two last competitions that I lost, and especially in the world championships, where for me it was a disappointing result, and coming back from that disappointing result, for me is really good. It’s my first grand slam gold medal and of course I’m really really happy," said Nora Gjakova in an interview.Vazha Margvelashvili was our Man of the Day. The -66kg athlete stood on top of the podium after a confident display of Judo all day in Abu Dhabi. In the final, he fought Yerlan Serikzhanov of Kazakhstan and threw with Koshi-guruma similarly to our woman of the day to take the Gold for Georgia.