Martin Pacek wins Grand Prix Tbilisi in style

Swedish Martin Pacek won all four of his contests by ippon including the final of the Grand Prix in Tbilisi against Javad Mahjoub of Iran to capture U100kg gold. Pacek, Tyumen Grand Slam winner, was able to beat Mahjoub for the first time by ippon from an uchi-mata with 27 seconds left on the clock.

"I was glad to have been able to come up with a winning performance in front of a knowledgeable crowd. I will leave here with good memories despite the fact the crowd were all rooting for my opponent. Although I had lost our two previous meetings I knew from training camps that I could throw Mahjoub. It was a good match up of differing styles and the uchi mata just felt right, I did not plan it,” said Pacek. When asked what was next Pacek answered, "I’ll be at home for a while now but in the lead up to the Games I’ll be in Japan once more for preparation."

In the first semi-final Beka Gviniashvili of Georgia came up short against Pacek who had a waza-ari advantage before scoring ippon with 11 seconds left from a makikomi effort. In the second semi-final Dusseldorf Grand Prix bronze medallist Javad Mahjoub defeated Italian Domenico Di Guida on shido penalties 1:2 in a scoreless bout.

The first bronze medal was won by Gviniashvili as he produced the best result of his brief U100kg career by throwing Tashkent Grand Prix bronze medallist Soyib Kurbonov (UZB) with a photogenic and enormous ura-nage for ippon. Gviniashvili put the crowd through every possible emotion during a gripping challenge all day long and they jumped out of their seats when Kurbonov landed for the maximum score for their compatriot. The second bronze medal was won by Fonseca who beat Casablanca African Open silver medallist Domenico Di Guida. Fonseca has the tools to trouble anyone in his category and has proven that this year by placing at all three of his IJF events. The 23-year-old took control with a yuko and added a waza-ari from which Di Guida could not fight back and the overmatched Italian accrued three penalties as he struggled to get to grips with his opponent.