Khusen Khalmurzaev takes gold, brother Khasan bronze

After the defeat of the current Olympic Champion, Khasan Khalmurzaev, on Saturday in U81kg of the Grand Prix in Agadir, the hecatomb continued for international title holders as current world champion, Nemanja Majdov of Serbia, was defeated in the semifinal by Ciril Grossklaus (SUI).

In the final, the Swiss was opposed to the brother of the Olympic Champion, Khusen Khalmurzaev (RUS). With his little leg attacks, Khalmurzaev quickly took a mental advantage over Grossklaus and the Russian was close to scoring with a sumi-gaeshi, but the Swiss could turn in the air to escape landing on his back. In the meanwhile the Swiss was penalised twice for passivity as he was totally incapable of imposing his grip. Khasan Khalmurzaev was also penalised with one shido, but when the last round of penalties were distributed, it meant two shidos for the Russian and three for the Swiss. Khasan Khalmurzaev could point to his brother sitting in the stand to tell him 'you see, you couldn't win yesterday, but I did it today'.

The first bronze medal contest opposed Joachim Bottieau (BEL), who so far had 4 Grand Prix medals and Islam Bozbayev (KAZ), holder of three Grand Slam and three Grand Prix medals until today. The fist penalties for blocking the opponent were awarded after more than two minutes to both athletes even though they had been pretty active throughout the match. The second penalty came after more than two minutes and a half of golden score as Bozbayev received a shido for escaping. But after 3 minutes and fourteen seconds of extra time, the Belgium was also penalised for a false attack. As nothing was scored, it was the last penalty that was awarded to Bozbayev that decided the final result, offering a fifth medal in a Grand Prix to Joachim Bottieau, after more than four minutes of golden score.

In the second bronze medal contest, Quedjau Nhabali (UKR), bronze medallist at the Baku Grand Slam last year, faced the current world champion Nemanja Majdov (SRB). Exactly half way to the end, the world champion received a first penalty for false attack as he clearly was lacking precision and speed in his attempts to throw Nhabali. Less than thirty seconds later, the Serbian was penalised again for passivity. After thirty seconds of golden score, Nhabali was penalised a second time for a false attack, but the next shido went to Nemanja Majdov, who got disqualified. This is a tough way back to the reality for the world champion who is definitely not back to his best since his title in Budapest last year.