All smiles for Kazakhstan’s former world champion Yeldos Smetov

Former world champion and Olympic silver medallist Yeldos Smetov (KAZ) won his first Grand Slam title with a lively performance in the U60kg category at the Grand Slam in Ekaterinburg. Kazakh star Smetov won all four of his contests without conceding a score as he was back to the form that saw him Olympic and world medals.

In the final Smetov defeated outsider Islam Yashuev (RUS) by waza-ari-awasette-ippon with a morote-seoi-nage and then a yoko-sutemi-waza effort.

In the first semi-final former Tyumen Grand Slam winner Oshima Yuma (JPN) lost out to Yashuev. The home judoka opened the scoring with a right-sided uchi-mata for a waza-ari and then threw with a ura-nage to win by waza-ari-awasette-ippon.

In the second semi-final Smetov (KAZ) dominated Khyar (FRA) by scoring twice without reply. The Kazakh star won by waza-ari-awasette-ippon with the pick of his two scores being his opening waza-ari from a right-sided low tai-otoshi.

The first bronze medal contest was won by Rio 2016 Olympic champion Beslan Mudranov (RUS) who bested former European champion Khyar. After two minutes of additional time the Frenchman was penalised with his third shido for stepping out to gift Mudranov the fourth Grand Slam medal of his career.

The second bronze medal contest saw Oshima defeat Sofia European Open silver medallist Sakhavat Gadzhiev (RUS) after 16 seconds of golden score. A sumi-gaeshi brought the only score of the contest as the Japanese earned a place on the podium at his first IJF event since he missed the medal podium at the 2016 Tokyo Grand Slam.