Kim Jae-Bum stars for home crowd in Jeju

Olympic champion Kim Jae-Bum (KOR) repeated his gold medal showing from a year ago as he retained his Jeju Grand Prix title. Kim, 29, who is now targeting a third Olympic medal at Rio 2016, defeated former European bronze medallist Joachim Bottieau (BEL) after 99 seconds. Bottieau started by being penalised for passivity and was the latest victim for Korean superstar Kim who left fans purring with satisfaction as he threw with a stunning morote seoi-nage.

In the first semi-final Kim was too much for long-time -73kg standout Wang Ki-Chun (KOR). Kim and Wang, two of the most experienced and successful members of the 56-strong Korean team in Jeju, are both aiming for a third consecutive Olympic Games in 2016 but only one can go. Wang lost on shido penalties as KIM had plenty in reserve against the shorter fighter who was penalised three times while KIM was penalised twice. The second semi-final was also scoreless as BOTTIEAU outlasted Tallinn European Open silver medallist Attila UNGVARI (HUN) on shido penalties in a tight affair.  

The first bronze medal was won by Asian Games bronze medallist NYAMSUREN Dagvasuren (MGL) who shut out UNGVARI who was separated from the former after being penalised twice during the scoreless five minute contest. The second bronze medal was captured by crowd favourite WANG who saw off Aleksandr ULIAKHOV (RUS). The Russian was penalised with a shido for passivity before being caught with a low tai-otoshi for waza-ari. WANG wrapped up the victory with osaekomi-waza as he started with a tate-shiho-gatame and continued to move around the body of his opponent for 15 seconds and a match-winning second waza-ari score.