Kim Won Jin of World level at Grand Prix Düsseldorf

Paris Grand Slam bronze medallist Kim Won Jin of Korea earned arguably the most significant victory yet in Düsseldorf on his road to Rio 2016 as the world number one beat the world champion Yeldos Smetov of Kazakhstan in the U60kg final. In a fantastic battle between two of the most exciting judoka in the category the crowd lapped up a thriller as both judoka left it all on the tatami.

The final produced four scores and three of them went to Kim who actually trailed to a waza-ari from a spinning uchi-mata from Smetov after 80 seconds. Kim never looked fazed and equalled the score with a waza-ari of his own before taking the lead with a yuko from a koshi-guruma. The South Korean added a second yuko from a tomoe-nage and still continued to attack as he finished as a decisive winner.

In the first semi-final Kim defeated former European champion Amiran Papinashvili (GEO) with a Georgian-style pick up giving him the lead before the latter responded with a yuko. Kim sealed his place in the final by wazari-awasette-ippon while in the second semi-final Havana Grand Prix silver medallist Bekir Ozlu (TUR) was picked up for ippon by Smetov.

The first bronze medal was claimed by Ozlu who launched Pan American Games winner Lenin Preciado (ECU) into the air with an unbelievable uchi-mata which brought the crowd to their feet and will be on highlight reels for years to come.

The second bronze medal went to Tokyo Grand Slam silver medallist Beslan Mudranov (RUS) who was sharper than beaten semi-finalist Papinashvili as the pair were locked up and a failed pick up ended with the pair on the ground and Mudranov captured the arm of the Georgian and sat back to force the submission from a juji-gatame.