Harasawa Hisayoshi challenges Teddy Riner in the road to Rio

Japanese judoka Harasawa Hisayoshi remains undefeated and with his second consecutive gold medal at the Grand Slam in Paris, he may be the one to challenge Teddy Riner at the Olympic Games in Rio. Harasawa is the only man in the World Ranking top 10 who hasn’t fought, and thus hasn’t lost to Teddy Riner.

The last final of the day opposed the winner of three Grand Slams last year (Tyumen, Paris and Tokyo), Harasawa Hisayoshi and the winner of the semi-final against the other Japanese of the category Shichinohe Ryu, Or Sasson (ISR). After less than two minutes, Harasawa was penalised with a first shido for passivity, when later on it was the turn of Sasson to receive a shido for breaking the grip. With two more penalties given to the Israeli, the Japanese was getting closer to a new Grand Slam gold, but Sasson was close to creating the surprise as he put Harasawa out of balance with a ko-uchi-gari but luckily for the Japanese it was for no score. With this new victory, Harasawa takes a strong advantage over his teammate Shichinohe for the Japanese Olympic qualification and a seemingly inevitable meeting with Olympic and eight-time world champion Teddy Riner (FRA) who could not compete due to a shoulder injury.

In the first semi-final European Games silver medallist Or Sasson (ISR) came from behind to beat double world silver medallist Shichinohe Ryu (JPN) by ippon while in the second semi-final 2015 Paris winner Harasawa Hisayoshi (JPN) could only beat Levani Matiashvili (GEO) on shido penalties 0:3.

The first bronze medal was won by 2015 Paris Grand Slam silver medallist David Moura (BRA) as Baku Grand Slam bronze medallist Levani Matiashvili (GEO) gave a below-par performance as he was penalised four times to receive hansoku-make and gift a place on the podium to the Brazilian. The second and last bronze medal fight of the tournament opposed Roy Meyer, from the Netherlands and the World Number Two Shichinohe Ryu (JPN) who was surprisingly eliminated in the semi-finals by Or Sasson (ISR). Meyer scored the first yuko with a ouchi-gari technique before being penalised with a shido. Always on the move and always attacking before the Japanese, Meyer showed great ambition against the Japanese giant and he could finally add a fourth Grand Slam medal to his prize list and his second in Paris. All alternative training methods of the last time helped Meyer as today he was fearless from the start in his bronze final,