Judo king Avtandili Tchrikishvili heading off to Rio

Who else than Avtandili Tchrikishvili confirmed his status as world leader. In Paris he claimed his second victory and third in a Judo Grand Slam. For the fourth time in a row a Georgian fighter wins the Grand Slam in the French capital.

World Number one and top seed Avtandili Tchrikishvili qualified against new comer Ivaylo Ivanov of Bulgaria. Even if the Bulgarian showed all of his talent last year by winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, and finishing with a bronze medal in Qingdao he was the underdog against Tchrikishvili. From the first hajime on, the 2014 world champion showed more power and control and was able to score a first waza-ari with a kata-guruma. But Ivanov was not afraid to attack as well and was suddenly able to go below the centre of gravity of the Georgian to propel him high in the sky of the Accorhotels Arena but for a landing only scored as a yuko. The end of the fight was not an easy one for Tchrikishvili who had all manner of difficulties to maintain his advantage. But with all his experience, he could finally win a new Grand Slam title, confirming his world number one position. Ivanov was the third Bulgarian to get a medal in Paris. Heavyweight Tsvetana Bozhilova won two in the eighties and legend Georgi Georgiev won three medals including the title in 2006 for his country.

In the first semi-final former Baku Grand Slam winner Alan Khubetsov (RUS) lost out to Tchrikishvili in a scoreless contest as the former was penalised twice. Tchrikishvili was busier than his Russian opponent as Khubetsov was penalised for passivity twice and that settled the contest after five minutes.

In the second semi-final Beijing 2008 Olympic silver medallist Wang Ki-Chun of Korea was surprisingly beaten by Ivanov who continued his amazing upward trajectory towards the summit of the category. Both judoka registered in the yuko column but Wang was denied a place in the gold medal contest as he was penalised twice while Bulgarian fighter Ivanov was only penalised on one occasion.

The first bronze medal was clinched by Wang who closed in on an Olympic berth for South Korea by beating Havana Grand Prix bronze medallist Csoknyai Laszlo (HUN). Wang won the sixth Grand Slam medal of his career by a waza-ari score after setting the Hungarian off balance with a cutting piece of ashi-waza before driving Csoknyai over with his upper body strength. Csoknyai was penalised for passivity with 91 seconds left while Wang infringed by stepping out but those indiscretions did not change the outcome.The second bronze medal was won by Rio 2016 medal hopeful Victor Penalber (BRA) who saw off Khubetsov. The first three minutes of the fight looked really balanced as neither Penalber nor Khubetsov where able to score. But the Brazilian opportunistically took advantage of a small mistake of his opponent to apply a powerful shime-waza technique for ippon, offering one more medal to the Brazilian delegation, which is very positive in the framework of the Olympic Games.