The Frenchman Walide KHYAR was on fire yesterday as he won his first major title since he became European Champion in 2016. In quarter-final he executed an amazing counter-attack (ura-nage) against the Japanese MIYANOHARA SEIYA. In the final KHYAR again won with the same technique.
After thirteen participations, Akil GJAKOVA of Kosovo reached for the very first time the final of the -73kg weight category. For that he defeated YOSHIDA Yuhei (JPN) in quarter final with a superb ashi-waza technique.
During the final of the men's -90kg, Islam BOZBAYEV (KAZ) and TOTH Krisztian (HUN) were opposed. The Kazakh produced a massive tai-otoshi for ippon to win gold. Fairplay, TOTH congratulated him after this brilliant movement that totally surprised him.
This image symbolizes the handover between several generations of champions. On the left is Anis Lounifi, World Champion in 2001 in Munich, who today is the coach of Oussama Mahmoud Snoussi (right), who's father was Lounifi's coach some years ago. Unfortunately the competition did not go very well for the young athlete but he has a great potential and we might see him again at the international level.
Even if The Olympic Champion Mijlinda Kelmendi of Kosovo was not present in Tunis for the Grand Prix, her national team did pretty well as Nora GJAKOVA (KOS - picture above) won gold in -57kg, Distria KRASNIQI finished second in -52kg and Akil GJAKOVA (Nora's brother) also got a silver medal in -73kg.
Images IJF Media by Gabriela Sabau