Turkey’s Ciloglu breaks Japanese resistance to go one better than 2017 silver

Turkish top talent Bilal Ciloglu showed his maturity and top level experience by coming from behind to defeat a Japanese judoka in a major final which is an extremely rare feat.

The 20-year-old Senior European Championships bronze medallist, who took world silver a year ago, backed Tsukamoto Ryo (JPN) into the corner and the Japanese scored a waza-ari from a uchi-mata on the edge of the contest area. Ciloglu pulled level with a waza-ari score from a sumi-gaeshi in the closing seconds to send the final into golden score. Tsukamoto was caught with the same technique 16 seconds into golden score to give Turkey a sensational win on day two.

In the first semi-final Tsukamoto had to come from behind to beat three-time Junior European Cup winner David Gamosov (RUS). The Russian led by a waza-ari score from a uchi-mata after 90 seconds and was on course for victory until the very last second when Tsukamoto registered a buzzer-beating waza-ari to force golden score. The Japanese judoka only needed seven seconds of added time to complete his road to the final with a modified kata-guruma earning ippon. In the second semi-final Georgios Markarian (GRE) was disqualified after receiving his third shido for passivity against Ciloglu in golden score.

The first bronze medal was claimed by Markarian who produced one of the ippons of the day at the expense of one-time Junior European Cup winner Victor Sterpu (MDA). Greek judoka Markarian threw his rival from Moldova with a sumptuous seoi-otoshi for the maximum score and his country’s opening medal in the Bahamas.                    

The second bronze medal was captured by Berlin Junior European Cup gold medallist Zhanbolat Bagtbergenov (KAZ) who timed his score perfectly. Kazakhstan’s Bagtbergenov earned a waza-ari with nine seconds left on the clock with a ippon-seoi-nage and Russia’s Gamosov had no time to respond and finished fifth.