Toma Nikiforov enjoys victorious ippon in Dusseldorf

Belgian World bronze medallist Toma Nikiforov lost his opening contest in Paris a fortnight ago but bounced back like a true champion to register his second Grand Prix career victory on Sunday. The Belgian fighter, whose last international medal was silver at the European Championships almost a year ago, needed just 35 seconds to defeat two-time Grand Slam bronze medallist and Tokai University member Wolf Aaron (JPN) who had no choice but to tap out to the shime-waza.

In the first semi-final former Ulaanbaatar Grand Prix bronze medallist Ben Fletcher (GBR) matched Wolf in regulation time before being launched with an uchi-mata for ippon after two minutes of golden score. In the second semi-final Tyumen Grand Slam bronze medallist Kazbek Zankishiev (RUS) was below-par against world bronze medallist Toma Nikiforov (BEL) as the Russian was penalised three times to receive hansoku-make and send his Belgian adversary into the gold medal contest.

The first bronze medal was won by Zankishiev who returned to winning ways against Johannes Frey (GER), the younger brother of two-time world medallist Karl-Richard Frey (GER). The Russian pressed from the outset and scored a waza-ari without reply which boosted his country’s medal count on the last day in Germany.

The second bronze medal was won by European bronze medallist Michael Korrel of the Netherlands who held down Fletcher for 20 seconds and ippon. The Dutch judoka won his fourth Grand Prix medal by pinning down Ben Fletcher who was coached by England-based Juergen Klinger who comes from Germany.