Jeong BoKyeong changes silver into gold in Paris

Korean Jeong BoKyeong finally takes a gold medal. After taking silver at Grand Prix in Almaty, The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the Grand Slam in Tokyo, she took revenge today in Paris against Munkhbat Urantsetseg of Mongolia. The former world champion Urantsetseg came into the competition as her team’s most experienced judoka in Paris and gave it her all as always but came up short against Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallist Jeong Bokyeong (KOR).

The South Korean evaded a sode-tsurikomi-goshi which was the first serious attack in the contest and with no scores registered the contest continued into golden score. An additional two minutes was required to separate the U48kg standouts as the Mongolian was penalised to give the first gold in Paris to Jeong who is now playing a starring role for her team.

In the first semi-final former world champion Munkhbat beat Julia Figueroa (ESP) by ippon with a morote-seoi-nage. In the second semi-final Jeong raced past Kondo Ami (JPN) in just 25 seconds in a crushing defeat for the Japanese judoka.

The first bronze medal contest saw Kondo bounce back in Paris as she beat a stubborn 18-year-old Paris debutant Anais Mosdier (FRA) by a single waza-ari. The effort of the young French fighter, who was making her senior debut, was applauded by the home fans while Kondo maintained and added to her standing as one of the top judoka in the women’s lightest weight category even though she came to France for gold. The second bronze medal contest opposed world number 12 Milica Nikolic (SRB) and beaten semi-finalist Figueroa. The pocket dynamo from Spain lost out to a waza-ari from a te-waza movement as Serbian Nikolic continues to perform wonders and will now break into the top 10.