Cho Gu-Ham overcomes 2008 Olympic Champion Naidan

Asian Games bronze medallist Cho Gu-ham (KOR) steered his country to the top of the podium once again as Beijing Olympic champion Naidan Tuvshinbayar (MGL) was upstaged by the younger Asian fighter. Cho, 22, a former heavyweight who moved down a category in the summer, proved too tricky for Naidan who was been there and done it all in judo.

Naidan was penalised repeatedly for false attacks and negative gripping before being penalised for a fourth and final time for passivity to receive hansoku-make. In the first semi-final Cho defeated another emerging -100kg fighter in Havana Grand Prix winner Toma Nikiforov (BEL) by ippon. In the second semi-final Olympic and Qingdao Grand Prix bronze medallist Dimitri Peters (GER) fell to Naidan by a yuko score.

The first bronze medal was won by PETERS who scored a yuko against little-known WON Jonghoon (KOR) before showing his ability on the ground as he locked on the juji-gatame to force the home judoka to submit. The second bronze medal was won by NIKIFOROV who saw off Tokyo Grand Slam silver medallist Kyle REYES (CAN) in a contest between two of the most talented young judoka in the category. NIKIFOROV countered an ouchi-gari for yuko before adding a second yuko and shutting out his Canadian foe for the remainder of the contest.