Guram Tushishvili can almost touch the gold medal

Georgia get a second chance on a gold medal as in the heavyweight tournaments most of the favourites are ruled out for the title while Guram Tushishvili had to do everything to reach the semi final, but he achieved where others failed.

Tushishvili won a thrilling quarter final against Dutchman Roy Meyer after more than three minutes in the golden score. Tushishvili had shown his awesome o-soto in two other matches and won his pool.

His opponent in the semi final will be Mongolian Ulziibayar Duurenbayar who defeated last year’s runner-up Hisayoshi Harasawa of Japan in the quarter final. The Japanese defeated Rafael Silva in Silva’s first match.

The other Brazilian David Moura who was poised to reach the semi final, got caught by Bekmurod Oltiboev of Uzbekistan and is out of the tournament. Oltiboev defeated Temur Rakhimov (TJK) who was able to break the other Japanese Yusei Ogawa. Both Japanese out, now when Riner doesn’t compete. They totally bet on this heavyweight title that is so important in Japan.

Oltiboev will face Ushangi Kokauri of Azerbaijan in the semi final, another major upset as Kokauri defeated the tallest of the pack, Olympic Champion (U100kg) Lukas Krpalek (CZE). He had all the chances to take the world title but lost out under the support of the home crowd that almost broke down the hall. Krpalek did win against 2008 Olympic champion Naidan (MGL) and triple world silver Henk Grol, but is now sent to the repechage against Rakhimov and still has the chance for bronze.

Semi finals:

Tushishvili vs Ulziibayar

Oltiboev vs Kokauri

Repechage:

Meyer vs Harasawa

Rakhimov vs Krpalek