Ivan Vorobev rocks the final at Grand Prix the Hague

Russian Ivan Vorobev repaid the faith that Russian team manager Ezio Gamba, who has been present in The Hague, continues to show in him by winning his inaugural Grand Prix title on Saturday. Former Tyumen Grand Slam winner Vorobev finally won gold in his 12th Grand Prix outing in sensational fashion as European silver medallist Dominic Ressel (GER) was on the receiving end of a beautiful tani-otoshi which will be played over and over again.

The Russian moved one way and then caught the German totally unaware as he was planted by the 29-year-old with power and precision to put Russia in fourth position on the medal table.

In the first semi-final Abu Dhabi Grand Slam winner and The Hague Grand Prix poster boy Frank De Wit (NED) was surprised by Vorobev (RUS) after 15 seconds of golden score. As De Wit attacked the Russian took control and used just te-waza to send over the Dutchman for a waza-ari to take some shine off the Netherlands’ fortunes of day two during the preliminaries as it was the last contest of the first session. In the second semi-final Junior world champion Matthias Casse (BEL) fell to Ressel who countered the young Belgian after three minutes of golden score for a waza-ari score.

The first bronze medal was won by Casse, 20, who upstaged South American veteran and Cancun Grand Prix winner Emmanuel Lucenti (ARG). The 33-year-old three-time Olympian lost out to a single waza-ari score while Belgium’s new kid on the block at -81kg is now on the brink of selection to one of judo’s five annual Grand Slams and looks set for a full year on the IJF World Judo Tour in 2018.   

The second bronze medal saw the world number one De Wit take on the world number two Saeid Mollaei (IRI). It was the visitor who secured a place on the podium with a sasae-tsurikomi-ashi scoring a waza-ari with five seconds left on the clock and De Wit tapped out while stuck in a hold down as he had no time to fight back. Mollaei raised the hand of his beaten opponent for him to lap up a home ovation before both judoka signed autographs for young fans before leaving the field of play.

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