Avtandili Tchrikishvili back to domination

At the Grand Slam of Tokyo the U81kg category was particularly tough and could be compared to a group of death, seeing the high number of favorites who were present today in Tokyo. Between Tchrikishvili, Nagase, Valois-Fortier and Pietri, it was difficult, in the morning to make a prediction on the future winner, but the tournament went differently than most had thought.

Yet it was patiently that world number one, Avtandili Tchrikishvili (GEO), defeated one by one each of his opponents to enter the finals where he was opposed to the Korean, Lee Seungsu, which was not part of the long list of favorites. Facing the world champion and defending gold medalist here in Tokyo, Nagase Takanori, Lee had the chance to see his opponent quickly eliminated in the semi-final for a prohibited leg grab.

If the final was not the most spectacular it is because both athlete were definitely the strongest today and perfectly neutralized themselves throughout the fight, Tchrikishvili confirming his World Number one position after a short victory by two penalties.

The first bronze medal fight opposed Greek Roman Moustopoulos, World number 15, and the current world champion Nagase Takanori (JPN), who scored the first with uchi-mata for yuko. Nagase repeated the same technique but for a better results a few seconds later for waza-ari. Never able to really launch an attack or even put his hands on Nagase’s judogi, Moustopoulos was thrown for another yuko with a o-soto-gari, before the Japanese applied an arm-lock for ippon.

 It was two old acquaintance of international judo who met for the second bronze medal of the day as Travis Stevens, 5th at the last London Olympic Games, and Wang Ki-Chun (KOR), who used to be the undisputed world number one in -73kg a few years ago, fought for a spot on the podium. At the end of the fight, only penalties could determine the winner, Wang Ki-Chun, Stevens having been penalised two times.