Azerbaijan is in the Top 8 countries in judo in terms of the number of awards won in the international arena. By mid-September, 156 awards had been won (49-36-71) based on the total of performances at the senior, cadet, junior and veteran levels. This allows Azerbaijan to take the 8th place in the world medal ranking.
We are ahead of the founders of judo - Japan, which is in 9th place in terms of the number of awards won. The country has 47 gold, 20 silver and 42 bronze medals, Idman.biz reports.
Of course, the historical result at the Paris Olympics is also a key indicator, where Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg) and Zelym Kotsoiev (100 kg) became champions, and our team took second place overall, behind only Japan.
Before that, both our leading judokas shone at the World Championship held in Abu Dhabi, where they won the title.
From the point of view of the current indicators in the World Tour competitions, the Grand Slam tournament held in Azerbaijan was productive with tatami owners signing a golden hat-trick: Zelim Tckaev (81 kg), Murad Fatiyev (90 kg) and Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg) took the place of honor. have risen to the highest level. We should not forget the European Championship, where Hidayat Heydarov (73 kg) and Eljan Hajiyev (81 kg) won gold medals. By the way, Eljan has already distinguished himself five times this season: he played in the finals of the Grand Slam competitions in Paris and Tbilisi, and also won a bronze medal in a similar tournament in Astana and the Grand Prix in Portugal.
The competition for the medal standings of the season is quite intense. For example, sixth-placed Ukraine has one gold medal ahead of us - 49 against 50. Even though it is equal in the number of gold medals with seventh-placed Algeria, it is ahead in the number of silver and bronze awards. In short, Azerbaijan is very close to entering the Top 6. Brazil is fifth (62-50-81).
France leads the overall medal list with 124 gold, 104 silver, and 190 bronze awards. Georgia comes next (70-61-101), and Uzbekistan (69-45-99) completes the top three.
Zaki Feyzullayev
Idman.biz
