First World Tour gold for Slovenian judoka Adrian Gomboc

Slovenian Adrian Gomboc won his first Grand Prix gold medal as Slovenia made a sensational start to the Grand Prix in Budapest. Former Zagreb Grand Prix bronze medallist, and Tunisia African Open bronze medallist Gomboc, squared off against Junior world champion Asari Masaya (JPN) and the 20-year-old, who was making his senior international debut in Budapest, limped his way onto the tatami and was unable to replicate his earlier form from the preliminaries as he lost by two yuko scores.

In the first bronze medal contest Casablanca African Open silver medallist Alexandre Mariac (FRA) gave his all against Jeju Grand Prix silver medallist Fujisaka Taroh (JPN) but the Frenchman lost out on shido penalties in a scoreless contest. Mariac was penalised three times while Fujisaka was only penalised once and therefore could add one more medal to Japan’s growing haul.            

The second bronze medal went to double Olympic bronze medallist Rishod Sobirov (UZB) who beat former Tbilisi Grand Prix silver medallist Baruch Shmailov (ISR). The contest was scoreless with 44 seconds remaining and both judoka had each been penalised three times but Sobirov always has an extra gear and sent his Israeli opponent to the tatami with a ko-uchi-gari for a waza-ari and held down his opponent with a tate-shiho-gatame for 15 seconds and bronze.