Anudari Jamsran successfully defends her Dushanbe Grand Slam crown
- Mongolia’s Anudari Jamsran won the women’s -48 kg at the Dushanbe Grand Slam on May 1, beating Amber Gersjes in the final. - The key detail is the repeat: Jamsran also won Dushanbe in 2025, so this was a successful title defense on the IJF tour. - That matters because she arrived off an Asian Championships gold, strengthening her case as a rising contender in judo’s lightest class.
Judo has a lot of one-weekend stories. A draw opens up, a favorite slips, someone catches fire, and then the tour moves on. But Anudari Jamsran’s win in Dushanbe looks different. She didn’t just take another gold on Friday, May 1 — she defended the same Grand Slam title she won a year earlier, beating the Netherlands’ Amber Gersjes in the women’s -48 kg final. That turns a nice result into a pattern. ### What happened in Dushanbe? Jamsran won the women’s -48 kg at the 2026 Dushanbe Grand Slam, the first day of the three-day IJF event in Tajikistan. The official results list her on top of the podium ahead of Gersjes, with China’s Zhuang Wenna and Hui Xinran taking bronze. The field was part of a tournament that brought 34 countries and roughly 240 to 268 judoka to Dushanbe, depending on the competition listing snapshot. (ijf.org) ### Why is the repeat the real story? Because Dushanbe was not a breakthrough for Jamsran in 2026 — it was proof that 2025 was not a fluke. She also won this same Grand Slam in 2025, when she finished first in the -48 kg division ahead of Zhuang. Back-to-back titles at the same Grand Slam matter on the IJF circuit because they show a judoka can (ijf.org)ket. (ijf.org) ### How did she reach the final? Her route was strong, not lucky. In the preliminaries, she beat Poland’s Slack on penalties, then Uzbekistan’s Ulbusin Khakimova by osaekomi, then France’s Mélanie Legoux Clément in the semifinal with a yuko from o-uchi-gari. That matters because it shows range — tactical control in one match, groundwork(ijf.org 1)(ijf.org 2) ### Who did she beat for gold? The final was against Amber Gersjes of the Netherlands, who had put together her own run to the last match. IJF’s event coverage and results page both place Gersjes as silver medalist behind Jamsran. The final itself is important beyond the medal table because Gersjes is not a random name f(ijf.org) that is usually decided by very small margins. (ijf.org) ### Why does this matter beyond one Grand Slam? Jamsran came into Dushanbe with momentum already building. Just weeks earlier, she won Asian Championships gold in the women’s U48 kg category, beating Uzbekistan’s Laziza Haydarova in that final. So this was not an isolated spike. Basically, she stacked a continental title and a defended Grand Slam crown in the same spring stretch. (judoinside.com) ### Where does she sit on the tour now? Her IJF athlete page shows Dushanbe 2025 as a gold and lists her next competition as the Qazaqstan Barysy Grand Slam in May 2026. That page also shows her world ranking line in seniors, which is still developing rather than fully established at the very top. The interesting part is that her results are arriving faster than her résumé has had time to harden. (ijf.org) ### Is she now a real contender? Yes — but in the “watch this closely” sense, not yet the “division ruler” sense. The -48 kg class is brutal because matches are often decided by one score, one hold, or one penalties sequence. Jamsran is suddenly doing the hard thing repeatedly anyway. A teenager defending a Grand Slam title while adding an Asian crown is ex(ijf.org)spect. (ijf.org) ### Bottom line? Dushanbe gave Jamsran more than another medal. It gave her continuity. On the IJF tour, that’s the difference between a nice weekend and a real arrival.
