Georgian golden boy Beka Gviniashvili wins second Masters title

Beka Gviniashvili was back among the World Judo Masters winners as he repeated his 2015 triumph with a fine day of judo in St. Petersburg. Gviniashvili seemingly saved his best judo of the year for the final competition of the season as he defeated world bronze medallist Gwak Donghan (KOR) in the U90kg final with a polished performance.

The 22-year-old Dusseldorf Grand Prix winner started off Georgia’s road to a trio of titles with a modified kata-guruma giving him the lead with a waza-ari score before a yoko-shiho-gatame left Gwak powerless as the former world champion took silver.

In the first semi-final Tokyo Grand Slam winner Nagasawa Kenta (JPN) lost to Gwak after picking up his third shido for passivity with six seconds left. In the second semi-final Abu Dhabi Grand Slam winner Nikoloz Sherazadishvili (ESP) failed against former Gviniashvili who beat his Tbilisi-born opponent by ippon.

The first bronze medal was won by Sherazadishvili in a spectacular contest with world number one Aleksandar Kukolj (SRB). The free-scoring bout saw the Spanish judoka outscore the Serbian three waza-ari to two after a back and forth four minutes which was one of the highlights of the final block.

The second bronze medal went to Nagasawa who countered a ko-soto-gake by former world silver medallist Toth Krisztian (HUN) with driving te-waza for a waza-ari after 52 seconds of golden score. 

Read all the news about the IJF World Masters in St. Petersburg.