Frenchman Guillaume Chaine finally takes Grand Prix gold

World number 43 Guillaume Chaine of France was a worthy but unexpected winner of the -73kg title in Tbilisi as he edged past former Havana Grand Prix silver medallist Magdiel Estrada (CUB). Chaine won his first IJF World Judo Tour gold medal by scoring an o-uchi-gari after 29 seconds for a waza-ari and Estrada failed to impose himself in his first IJF final.

France’s second gold medal in Georgia gave them top spot in the medal table after Chaine disposed of Kazakh, Brazilian, Polish, Mongolian, Russian and Cuban opposition as he prevailed in all six of his contests.

In the first semi-final Estrada (CUB) threw world number 397 Valeri Iashvili (GEO) with a morote-seoi-nage for ippon. In the second semi-final Chaine surprised Marrakech Grand Prix winner Denis Iartcev (RUS) by throwing the Russian with 15 seconds left and then held down the latter for 10 seconds to reach the gold medal contest.

The first bronze medal was won by Iartcev who conquered Junior World Championships bronze medallist Georgios Markarian (GRE) after 22 seconds with his patented ashi-waza.                                                    

The second bronze medal went to Iashvili who opened his IJF World Judo Tour medal account on his Grand Prix debut with a major scalp over former world bronze medallist Ganbaatar Odbayar (MGL). A tani-otoshi from the Georgian was the difference as the Mongolian had to settle for fifth-place