Sensational Christian Parlati lifts Italy to second in the medal table

Italian Christian Parlati was the leading man in the U81kg category as he found a way past Kasahara Hiromasa (JPN) to spark the now familiar celebrations from the wonderful Italian team. Kasahara, who was fighting at his first and last Junior World Championships as he will be too old to compete next year, was launched with a ashi-guruma for ippon with 59 seconds left on the clock.

Junior European Championships bronze medallist Parlati was lifted up by his coach as the Italian team rushed to the barricades to congratulate their latest champion. The Nippon Club Napoli judoka, who took bronze a year ago, was pounced on by his teammates as the Italian’s showed their incredible team spirit and peerless passion as they prepared to belt out the Italian anthem once again.  

In the first semi-final Kasahara downed two-time Junior European Cup gold medallist Rajkai Robert (HUN) in just 51 seconds as he pinned down his Hungarian opponent with a yoko-shiho-gatame for his second waza-ari score. In the second semi-final Parlati beat former Cadet Asian Championships winner Dzhakhongir Madzhidov (TJK) by a waza-ari score as he rolled over his opponent for the only score in their highly-competitive contest.

The first bronze medal was won by Junior European Championships winner Luka Maisuradze (GEO) who simply overpowered Madzhidov. Maisuradze threw with a harai-makikomi to open the scoring and sealed his win with a uchi-mata-sukashi for Georgia’s second medal in Nassau.

The second bronze medal was won by Junior Pan American Championships bronze medallist Alexandre Arencibia (CAN) who defeated Rajkai in golden score. The Hungarian made the better start as he earned a waza-ari score from a thunderous ippon-seoi-nage before his Canadian rival fought back and scored a waza-ari of his own. Three minutes of golden score was required two separate the two throwers as Arencibia conjured up the definitive moment of a pulsating contest with a modified kata-guruma for a waza-ari score.