Wonderboy Abe remains unbeaten at Grand Slam level

World number 25 and top seed Abe Hifumi of Japan won the second Grand Slam gold medal of his career as he defeated former Tyumen Grand Slam bronze medallist Anzaur Ardanov of Russia in the U66kg final. Abe previously won the Grand Slam in Tokyo in 2014. A 100% conversion at Grand Slams.

Abe, who beat teammate and former Jeju Grand Prix winner Tateyama Sho (JPN) in the semi-final with a neat de-ashi-barai for a waza-ari, attacked Ardanov with a trademark ouchi-gari but for no score. The 18-year-old hotshot scored a waza-ari from an osoto-gari and the All Japan Championships winner, who finished ahead of triple world champion and Rio 2016 fighter Ebinuma Masashi (JPN) in the most important national competition in Japan, saw out the remainder of the contest as his star potential looks limitless. 

In the first bronze medal contest reigning Tyumen Grand Slam bronze medallist Yakub Shamilov (RUS) repeated his 2015 result as he saw off Sofia European Open silver medallist Abdula Abdulzhalilov (RUS) with a juji-gatame making his teammate submit. The second bronze medal went to former Jeju Grand Prix winner Tateyama Sho (JPN) who outshone former Rio de Janeiro Grand Slam winner Denis Lavrentiev (RUS) in a battle of technique against power. Tateyama captured his first Grand Slam medal with two yuko scores as Russian Lavrentiev relied on power and was caught on several occasions by the ashi-waza of the Japanese who showed the deftest of touches to devastating effect.

Japanese victories in Moscow/Tyumen U66kg