TASHKENT - From March 1 to 3, the next Grand Slam on the IJF World Judo Tour took place in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. Five judokas represented Judo Belgium. Matthias Casse took his second consecutive gold Grand Slam medal after Paris. Jorre Verstraeten and Toma Nikiforov missed out on the bronze medal and had to settle for fifth place. Mina Libeer and Sami Chouchi were eliminated in the preliminaries. Below we review the bouts of our judokas.
Mina Libeer (-57kg/JV)
Round 1: Victory vs. Fazilat Gulboeva (TJK)
Round 2: Defeat vs. Kaja Kajzer (SLO)
Jorre Verstraeten (-60kg/JWB) – 5th PLACE
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Victory vs. Bakhrom Boturov (UZB)
Round 3: Victory vs. Gamzat Zairbekov (AIN)
Quarter-Final: Defeat vs. Romain Valadier Picard (FRA)
Repechage: Victory vs. Yeldos Smetov (KAZ)
Bronze: Defeat vs. Salih Yildiz (TUR)
Matthias Casse (-81kg/JV) – GOLD
Round 1: Bye
Round 2: Victory vs. Khasan Khalmurzaev (AIN)
Round 3: Victory vs. Nurbek Murtozoev (UZB)
Quarter-Final: Victory vs. Mykhailo Svidrak (UKR)
Semi-Final: Victory vs. Takanori Nagase (JPN)
Final: Victory vs. Shamil Borchashvili (AUT)
Sami Chouchi (-90kg/JWB)
Round 1: Defeat vs. Shakhzodxuja (UZB)
Toma Nikiforov (-100kg/JV) – 5th PLACE
Round 1: Victory vs. Nicholas Mungai (ITA)
Round 2: Victory vs. Dzhafar Kostoev (UAE)
Quarter-Final: Defeat vs. Arman Adamian (AIN)
Repechage: Victory vs. Shermukhammad Jandreev (UZB)
Bronze: Defeat vs. Dota Arai (JPN)
