Beslan Mudranov stays cool and takes Olympic judo title U60kg

What an amazing day of judo at the first Olympic fight day for women U48kg and men U60kg with two surprising winners: Paula Pareto of Argentina and Beslan Mudranov of Russia. The gold medal for women stays in South America at Paula Pareto's place. Russia was able to prolong the title, as Mudranov took the gold where in 2012 Arsen Galstyan was Olympic Champion.

Team Manager Ezio Gamba and coach Kasambi Taov took a gold medal, a medal of the joint team that was so much under pressure.

The number eight seed Mudranov  won the final against Yeldos Smetov in the golden score after both against were completely equal. One massive attack from Mudranov in the golden score was enough for the Olympic title.

Beslan Mudranov is European Games winner in 2015 and triple European Champion in 2012, 2014 and 2015. He won World silver in 2014 in Chelyabinsk and is the successor of Olympic Champion Arsen Galstyan U60kg since 2012.

In the semi final he bested Amiran Papinashvili of Georgia by ippon. Mudranov became winner of his poule by defeating World Number one Kim Won Jin (KOR), Hovhannes Davtyan (ARM) and Jeroen Mooren (NED).

Smetov was completely equal today, the Kazach World champion got all the respect of the winner who kept cool the whole day, maybe that was the secret. Smetov defeated Orkhan Safarov who also showed some amazing judo but was unlucky with his fifth place after his loss against Naohisa Takato. The Japanese got caught by Amiran Papinashvili, who lost his semi final to Mudranov and also ended fifth as Takato and Diyorbek Urozboev of Uzbekistan won the bronze. Urozboev showed himself likely the happiest person on earth and he was right, an excellent performance during the day. The coolest though won the Olympic title and prolonged the title for Russia.

Olympic Champions U60kg

Watch today's fight schedule and all profiles here.