Iran’s judo team came out of the Tbilisi Judo Grand Prix in Tbilisi, Georgia, March 30 to April 1, with one silver medal.
According to the International Judo Federation website, Ijf.org, Javad Mahjoub of +100kg lost the final match to his Georgian rival Guran Tushishvili, who holds the gold medal of the 2017 St. Petersburg Masters Cup, and settled for silver.
In his first match Mahjoub defeated the Russian Soslan Bostanov, bronze winner of the 2017 Hague Grand Prix, in Pool D of the tournament and faced French judoka Hamza Ouchani in his second match.
The Iranian defeated Ouchani to come out as the winner of Pool D to fight the gold winner of the 2018 Oberwert European Open in Austria, Onise Bughadze from the host country in the semifinal.
Judokas of the host country dominated the semis with three entries and only Mahjoub among them.
However, Mahjoub came out victorious in the semifinal but lost the final to his Georgian rival Tushishvili. The silver medal increased the medal count for Mahjoub to three in 2018.
Iran sent a five-member team to the Georgian event. Two Iranian judokas Alireza Khojasteh in the -66kg and Mohammad Mohammadi-Barimanloo in the -73kg weight classes finished fifth while the other two were eliminated early in the tournament.
Mahjoub’s silver as well as two fifth places put Iran on the 12th place of the Grand Prix.
A total of 302 judokas from 38 nations attended the tournament in both categories of men and women. Iran sent only the men’s team.
The Tbilisi Grand Prix 2018 was one of the highlights of this year. Georgia hosted the sixth event of the season following the Tunis Grand Prix in Tunisia, Paris Grand Slam in France, Dusseldorf Grand Prix in Germany, Agadir Grand Prix in Morocco and Ekaterinburg Grand Slam in Russia.
