Dmytro Kanivets takes biggest career victory in Zagreb

Ukraine middleweight Dmytro Kanivets showed why he was the top U73kg seed in Zagreb as he won all four of his contests to register his first IJF Grand Prix gold medal. Kanivets faced Swedish Tommy Macias in the second final on day two of the Grand Grand Prix.

The 23-year-old Macias, who failed to qualify for Rio 2016, lost out to Kanivets – who also fell short in his qualification bid for South America’s first Olympics – as the Ukrainian hunted down his opponent to eventually score a yuko from a committed ashi-waza attack. Kanivets was silver medallist at Budapest Grand Prix now caught gold.

In the first semi-final Kanivets erased Akil Gjakova of Kosovo by a waza-ari score as the latter saw his bid to become his country’s first male IJF World Judo Tour medallist move into the bronze medal equation. In the second semi-final Macias prevailed against Sofia European bronze medallist Tohar Butbul (ISR) by two shidos 0:2 in a scoreless contest.

The first bronze medal was won by Tyumen Grand Slam silver medallist Arbi Khamkhoev of Russia who scored his waza-ari and sat on that advantage for the remainder of the contest to safely secure a podium position. Former Junior European Championships bronze medallist Butbul was caught with a ko-uchi-gari for a yuko but the score was removed as upon review it was evident that the Israeli had turned out onto his front to avoid giving away the score. Khamkhoev countered a sode-tsurikomi-goshi for a waza-ari and avoided any further contact of note to win the first -73kg bronze medal. The second bronze medal was won by 19-year-old Chirchik Junior Asian Cup silver medallist Sukhrob Tursunov (UZB) who stopped Gjakova from becoming Kosovo’s first male IJF World Judo Tour medallist. Kosovo’s women have been making history year on year in judo and no more so than this summer when double world champion Majlinda Kelmendi became her country’s first Olympic gold medallist. Gjakova sensed his chance to continue Kosovo’s run today but he fell short as Tursunov lifted him up with a ura-nage for ippon.