Roy Meyer makes the Olympic dream come true starting in Zagreb

Dutch powerhouse Roy Meyer confidently collected the first IJF gold medal of his career which is going one way and that is towards the upper echelons of the category. Abu Dhabi Grand Prix silver medallist Meyer, 23, finished seventh at the European Championships and Paris Grand Slam this year before putting in a solid performance in Chelyabinsk where he finished fifth.

Meyer defeated former Algerian Championships winner Mohammed Amine Tayeb (ALG) in the final as the Dutchman put in a top draw performance in his first IJF World Judo Tour final. Both judoka were penalised after 43 seconds for passivity before the Algerian was penalised a second time for the same offence and that was how the contest was settled after five minutes. 

In the first semi-final Meyer showed his stamina to defeat Havana Grand Prix bronze medallist Barna Bor (HUN) in golden score. The content was scoreless after five minutes and would severely test the conditioning of both men in unlimited golden score where the first shido or score decides the winner. Bor was penalised for passivity after 24 seconds and Meyer was through to the final. In the second semi-final Tayeb narrowly defeated Budapest Grand Prix bronze medallist Andrey Volkov (RUS). Tayeb went in front with a yuko before receiving shido penalties for going out of the area and an attempted bear hug but kept his opponent at bay to seal his progression into the gold medal contest.

The first bronze medal went to London 2012 Olympian Vladut Simionescu (ROU) who was good value for his victory against Volkov. Simionescu produced a yuko to open the scoring and found a way through again to score ippon from an uchi-mata with 90 seconds remaining. The second bronze medal went to former Ulaanbaatar Grand Prix bronze medallist Or Sasson (ISR) who surged past BOR by want a fantastic seoi-nage having teased it in the previous exchanges.