Naohisa Takato back at the top U60kg

Number five seed at the Grand Slam of Paris, French Vincent Limare knew he had to produce his best judo to reach the podium. This is what he did throughout the preliminary rounds by successively defeating Nuno Carvalho of Portugal, Juan Postigos of Peru and Dutch Jeroen Mooren. In the semi-finals he found in his path the seeded number one, fifth in the world, Uzbek Sharafuddin Lutfillaev (UZB).

Being an outsider but strongly encouraged by the French public helps and Limare had to wait for the golden score to score a waza-ari which sent him to the final where he met the 2011 world champion and current world number 11, Japanese Takato Naohisa, who went through the preliminary rounds without any major issue.   

Limare was quickly penalised with a shido for false attack after he totally missed a sutemi-waza technique. Thirty seconds later, the same mistake generated the same result and Limare was penalised again. After several dangerous attacks and a very good preparation with the sleeve of his opponent, Takato dropped on his knees to engage an acrobatic kata-guruma, Limare twisting into the air, to land almost fully on his back for a waza-ari. Even if the French did not give up, he had to escape from several incredible attacks from the Japanese who was never really in danger throughout his competition day.

In the first semi-final Limare outlasted Sharafuddin Lutfillaev (UZB) as he won in golden score by a waza-ari after 43 seconds of added time. In the second semi-final Dashdavaa Amartuvshin (MGL) slipped to defeat against Takato by ippon after one minute.

 The first bronze medal fight opposed Jeroen Mooren (NED), fifth at the European Games this year and the silver medallist of the 2013 World Championships in Rio, Dashdavaa. When both athletes entered the last minute only penalties were distributed as the two athletes had two shido to their names. This was the moment that Dashdavaa decided to counter attack a last attempt for Mooren to score ippon. In the second bronze medal contest, Ludovic Chammartin (SUI), bronze medallist in Baku on the occasion of the first edition of the European Games, faced Lutfillaev,already winner of two Grand Prix this season. Only 31 seconds were necessary for Lutfillaev to score a perfect ippon with an opportunistic de-ashi-barai.