Kazakh judoka Abylaikhan Zhubanazar won the gold medal at the Grand Slam series tournament in Switzerland. The 26-year-old athlete became the winner of the competition in the weight category up to 81 kg, winning the "Grand Slam" for the first time in his career. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

In the final, Zhubanazar met with representative of Uzbekistan Arslonbek Tojiev. For a long time, the rivals could not perform a scoring action and each received one "shido". The outcome of the bout was decided at the end, when the Kazakhstani earned a "yuko".

On the way to gold, Zhubanazar successively defeated Czech Petr Mlada, Ukrainian Vladyslav Kolobov, Georgian Zaur Dvalashvili and Russian Egor Sukhoparov. In the semifinal, the representative of Kazakhstan defeated Georgy Elbakiev from the UAE, after which in the decisive bout he was stronger than Tojiev.

Bronze medalists in the under-81 kg category were Swiss Aurelien Bonferroni and Azerbaijani Omar Rajabli.

For Zhubanazar, this is already the third major award of the season. In February, he became a bronze medalist at the Grand Slam in Paris, and in April he took third place at the Asian Championships.

In the weight up to 81 kg, Kazakhstan was also represented by Adilet Almat. He won the opening bout against Italian Vincenzo Pelligra, then lost to Rajabli and finished his performance.

In the under-73 kg category, Bakhtyzhan Abdurakhmanov started the tournament with a victory over Finnish Valtteri Olin, but then lost to the world ranking leader Mukhiddin Asadulloev from Tajikistan. Ansarbek Gainullin dropped out after the first bout, losing to Belgian Ray Marinks.

Among women in the under-70 kg category, Azhar Askhat lost in the first bout to German Miriam Butkereit. The day before, Dana Abdirova (57 kg) also stopped after the first bout, losing to British Aselya Toprak.

Kazakhstan's best result on the first day was shown by Sherzod Davlatov (60 kg). He reached the semifinal, where he lost to Korean Lee Harim, and then in the bronze medal bout lost to Uzbek Samariddin Kuchkarov and took fifth place. Akylzhan Zhubatkanov (66 kg) became seventh.

After two competition days, Kazakhstan has one gold medal. In the current medal standings, the team ranks fifth.

The Grand Slam judo tournament is held in Lausanne (Switzerland) from August 28 to 30 with the participation of 513 athletes from 77 countries. A total of 14 sets of awards will be played (seven each among men and women). Kazakhstan is represented by 15 athletes.