Lasha Bekauri completes the Georgian party

The third day of the Junior World Championships ended with Georgia taking the lead of the medal table ahead of Japan, with three titles. If the defending Junior World Champion, Lasha Bekauri of Georgia confirmed that he is the strongest junior in his weight division, Vladimir Akhalkatsi also won gold, showing that their country will continue to play a major role in the judo world in the years to come.

The final match of the day was between the other Georgian finalist of the day Lasha Bekauri and the Hungarian Goz Roland, finalist of the last European Junior Championships, nothing more than the remake of the European final that took place a few weeks ago. Lasha Bekauri is already a regular at major international events, as he was the reigning Junior World Champion and won the Cadet world title two years ago.

The confrontation between the two athletes began under the sign of dynamism and speed. The Kumikata sequences were particularly accurate despite the execution speed. After the first round of observation, the big favorite, Bekauri, scored a magnificent ippon on o-soto-gari, having very intelligently surpassed Goz' attack. With this gold Bekauri puts Georgia at the top of the ranking nations. This is probably not the last time we hear about him.

Toni Miletic (BIH), bronze medallist of the 2015 Cadets World Championships, and Gennaro Pirelli (ITA) faced in the first bronze medal contest. After a few seconds Miletic received a first shido for having stepped out of the competition area and received his second warning a little later for passivity. As the end of the match approached, it was the time of the golden score and it only took a few seconds for Miletic to receive a third penalty, giving the victory to the Italian Gennaro Pirelli.

The second bronze medal match saw Louis Mai (GER), fifth at the last European Championships, facing the winner of the last Asian-Pacific Championships, Mashiyama Kosuke (JPN). The least we can say is that the scenario was incredible. Totally dominated, penalized twice for passivity, under the constant pressure of Mashiyama, who was relentlessly attacking, Mai was moving slowly but surely to the foot of the podium. But this is the magic of judo, with one single attack, on a lightning kata-guruma, the German scored an ippon that he will remember forever.