Kim Won-Jin improves last year's Tokyo silver to gold

KIM Won Jin (KOR) and SHISHIME Toru (JPN) were the two athletes invited to the final of the Grand Slam Tokyo, after having respectively defeated TSAI Ming Yen (TPE), Tobias ENGLMAIER (GER), YAMAMOTO Hirofumi (JPN) and Rustam IBRAYEV (KAZ) for the Korean and HWANG Dong Kyu (KOR), AN Jianqi (CHN), Artiom ARSHANSKI (ISR) and OSHIMA Yuma (JPN) for the Japanese, knowing the SHISHIME was not among the favorites in the morning.

Throughout the fight and despite the full implication of both fighters, only penalties were distributed: two to KIM and three to SHISHIME. Thus after having won the Jeju Grand Prix, last week, KIM Won Jin goes one step higher with his victory in Tokyo and the 500 points gained in Japan, will help him to move forward within the World Ranking List.

The first bronze medal fight was disputed between the two Japanese, YAMAMOTO Hirofumi (JPN), winner of the Asian Championships, Bangkok 2013 and OSHIMA Yuma (JPN), bronze medallist of the Tyumen Grand Slam this summer. After a tough fight between two athletes who perfectly know each other, OSHIMA Yuma, won the medal with a single shido difference, even if during the combat, he was not far from scoring with a powerful ko-uchi-gari, which was just lacking a bit of control at the conclusion of the movement.

In the second bronze medal fight, Artiom ARSHANSKI (ISR) was opposed to Rustam IBRAYEV (KAZ). Top seeded athlete and world number one, GANBAT Boldbaatar (MGL), was rapidly eliminated during the first round. After an already difficult first fight against UROZBOEV Diyorbek (UZB), won by a single yuko, GANBAT was ten defeated by David PULKRABEK (CZE), who then lost against the Kazakh, IBRAYEV, present in this first bronze medal fight. To access the podium, IBRAYEV was the first to score with a rotating sumi-gaeshi for waza-ari, followed a little bit later by an ippon from a counter-attack (yoko-guruma).