Primo halts Keldiyorova’s Grand Slam comeback

Twenty seven months after she threw Uta Abe, Amandine Buchard and Distria Krasniqi on the way to Olympic gold in Paris, Diyora Keldiyorova walked into the Mubadala Arena in Abu Dhabi as the 138th ranked judoka at U52kg, unseeded, a mother, and the most watched name in a 28 woman draw. She walked out before the final block. Gefen Primo of Israel, silver medallist at the World Championships in Baku this year, beat her in the early rounds, and the comeback that had started so well with gold at the Asian Open in Aktau on 17 October met the Grand Slam level and lost.

Nobody around her had pretended Aktau meant more than it did. Three ippons there, over Nuraylim Sarsenbek and Gulkhan Shyngyskhan of Kazakhstan and Farida Mirzaeva of Azerbaijan in the final, had shown the drop sode-tsurikomi-goshi and the juji-gatame follow ups still work, and Keldiyorova herself called it a test of preparation rather than proof of form. Abu Dhabi was the proof, and the draw put her in Pool D with Primo on Thursday. The Uzbek had lost finals in this arena before, to Astride Gneto at the 2022 Grand Slam and to Odette Giuffrida at the 2024 World Championships, so the city had unfinished business written all over it. It still does.

Topolovec from 65th in the world to Croatia’s sixth Grand Slam champion

With the Olympic champion gone and several of the top ranked women absent, the category belonged to whoever handled a nervous day best, and that was Tihea Topolovec. The 27 year old Croatian, ranked 65th and back at U52kg after several seasons at U57kg, beat Réka Pupp of Hungary and then Primo on her way to the final, where Buchard, unseeded but still an Olympic silver medallist, waited. The final stayed tight and tactical until, with under a minute left, Topolovec scored waza-ari with uchi-mata and held it. It was her first Grand Slam medal and it came as gold, making her the sixth Croatian to win one after, among others, Barbara Matić. The groundwork was old: cadet world silver in Sarajevo in 2015, European bronzes at junior and U23 level, a world number one ranking at cadet, junior and U23 age groups at different moments, and a 2026 that already held the European Cup in Sarajevo, Grand Prix bronze in Lima and Pan American Open gold in the same city. Thirty one international medals, ten of them gold, and now the one that counts.

Primo’s bronze and the rematch that is still waiting

Primo lost to Topolovec before the final and then produced the fight of the bronze block: behind to Tereza Bodnarova of the Czech Republic after a waza-ari and two yuko, she kept attacking and finished with ippon. Top seed Roza Gyertyas of Hungary took the other bronze by submission on the floor against Aleksandra Kaleta of Poland. For Keldiyorova the arithmetic is simple and slow. The points from Abu Dhabi still lift her ranking, Marko Spittka is back in Uzbekistan in an advisory role, and the fight everyone wants, against Uta Abe, who has won two world titles since Paris and intends to take the Olympic gold back in Los Angeles, is unscheduled. The Grand Slam in Tokyo in December is the first place it could happen. On Thursday’s evidence, Keldiyorova needs the weeks in between.

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