Mashu Baker back in the Tour with Grand Prix gold

Three time continental medalist Colton Brown (USA) was on fire today in the men's U90kg weight division at the Grand Prix in Montreal. He entered the final for the first time on the occasion of a Grand Prix to be opposed to the current Olympic Champion, Baker Mashu, who had an amazing series of wins during the morning session, winning three of his matches by ippon and one by waza-ari.

After approximately one minute, a first shido was given to Brown for blocking his opponent. With a bit more than one minute to go, Baker was also penalized with a shido. With ten second left, and as the Golden Score was approaching, Brown launched an uchi-mata, immediately countered with in uchi-mata-sukashi for a waza-ari offering the victory to the Olympic Champion. Maybe not the most spectacular match of Baker, but efficient.

The first bronze medal match opposed the 2017 Junior World Championships bronze medallist, Eduard Trippel (GER) and the 2014 Junior World Champion, Rafael Macedo (BRA). Trippel scored the first waza-ari with a superb sumi-gaeshi, that propelled Macedo in the air of the Maurice Richard arena. The German was close to score a second time with an other sutemi-waza, but the Brazilian escapes. With a powerful drop-morote-seoi-nage, Macedo scored a waza-ari just after the first two minutes. With a little more than one minute to go, Tripple tried to conclude, but his attack was lacking control and Macedo, very stable on his feet, countered the German, to score his second waza-ari.

The second bronze medal contest saw Mohab El Nahas (CAN), who so far had no record on the international scene, and Milan Randl (SVK), bronze medal of the Moscow Grand Slam in 2012, opposed for a spot on the podium. Randl was the first in action, scoring a waza-ari with a te-waza technique to take a strong lead. Then he controlled the rest of the match to take his second medal in a Grand Prix.