Unbeatable Lasha Bekauri captures gold for Georgia

Georgian super talent Lasha Bekauri was crowned Junior world champion on Friday with a scintillating display in the U90kg category. Georgia’s latest -90kg hope upset highly-touted St. Petersburg Junior European Cup bronze medallist Murao Sanshiro (JPN) in the final.

Japan’s 18-year-old national cadet champion, who is coached by Olympian and 2010 world bronze medallist Takamatsu Masahiro at Toin High School, was thrown for ippon after just 39 seconds to provide Georgia with their first gold medal of the competition and it was no surprise that it came in their favourite weight category. Cadet World Championships gold medallist Bekauri danced to the Georgian music after leaving the mat being before swarmed on by his teammates.

In the first semi-final Bekauri bombarded one-time Cadet European Cup winner Darko Brasnjovic (SRB) with attacks and wrapped up a one-sided win in 80 seconds. The Georgian scored a waza-ari with an o-soto-gari and added a second waza-ari from a kuzure-kesa-gatame hold. In the second semi-final favourite Murao defeated Junior European Championships winner Falk Petersilka (GER) with a o-soto-gari and a ko-uchi-gake at the halfway point with two waza-ari scores on the scoreboard.

The first bronze medal was claimed by Oberwart European Open gold medallist Mashiyama Kosuke (JPN) who took Petersilka over after 11 seconds of added time for a match-winning waza-ari score.                      

The second bronze medal was captured by Junior European Championships silver medallist Mert Sismanlar (TUR) who stormed past Brasnjovic after 38 seconds by ippon. Sismanlar scored with a o-uchi-gari to claim the final spot on the -90kg podium in the penultimate contest on day three.