Teltsidou is golden again. First and best at the Baku Grand Slam

Golden shine for Elisabeth Teltsidou in a Grand Slam, for the fourth time in less than a year. The 7th Olympic champion of Tokyo, under the guidance of the national coach Nikos Iladis, left no room for doubting her superiority against the four gymnasts she was invited to face in the Baku event and with relative ease reached the top of the -70 category kg. A summit which he has enjoyed three more times since October 2022, namely in Abu Dhabi, Tbilisi and Kyrgyzstan. With the new collection of points from the Baku Grand Slam, the Greek judoka will move up at least one place in the Olympic ranking and from 5th place, she will be in the top four (she is 6th in the World ranking). And of course “Paris 2024”, is even closer from today…

“I’m happy to get another gold. I am happy to be firmly in the Grand Slam medals, through which qualification for the Paris Olympics will come. I want to continue with the same pace in the next games, because my presence in the Olympic Games is a motivation for me. I would like to thank the federation, my sponsors, the Hellenic Olympic Committee and everyone who supports me and gives me strength to continue. The next match is the European one”, said Elisavet Teltsidou on the official site of EOT.

Next to all the great successes of Teltsidos, there is always the national coach Nikos Iliadis. “Lisa has leveled up since the Tokyo Olympics. Now she is among the top 4-5 athletes in the category and is a terror for any opponent. We know that the motivation of our opponents to win is great, precisely because Teltsidou is now one of the leaders of the division, but we are not stressed. We proved it today with the gold medal in Baku. It is a medal for all Greeks and especially those who have been counting their wounds for a few weeks in Thessaly due to the bad weather. We are thinking of them and dedicating this medal to them,” Nikos Iliadis told hjf.gr.

On the way to the gold, Teltsidou defeated Brazilian Carvalho, Australia’s Coughlan in straight sets and qualified for the final after defeating the “silver” 2022 world champion in Tashkent, Croatia’s Tsvetko. In the final, she prevailed against Waza-ari of Tsunoda from Japan, who has been competing with the national emblem of Spain for a long time.

It should be noted that Teltsidou has now reached five Grand Slam medals, since in addition to the four golds, she was also 3rd at the Tokyo Grand Slam in December 2022.