Ivan Nifontov outsmarts Antoine Valois-Fortier in Abu Dhabi final

The Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi saw a final U81kg between the two favorites of the category, Canadian silver medallist of the recent World Championships in Chelyabinsk, Antoine VALOIS-FORTIER (CAN) and the 2009 World Champion Ivan Nifontov (RUS). After one minute, Nifontov produced his effort with a powerful and week controlled sumi-gaeshi for waza-ari giving no chance to escape to the Canadian who was immediately immobilized for ippon.

Defending the colours of the United Arab Emirates, Sergiu Toma (UAE) faced the winner of the Tashkent Grand Prix Roman Moustopoulos (GRE) for the bronze medal. The UAE athletes scored the first with an opportunist ko-soto movement, for yuko, after less than a minute. But Moustopoulos took again the lead with a beautiful counter attack for waza-ari. But this was definitely not the end of the fight. Toma again came back with a tani-otoshi for waza-ari before doubling the score with a sutemi-waza and a first medal for the organizing country on the occasion of this first Grand Slam in the history of UAE.

The second bronze medal fight opposed Aliaksandr STSIASHENKA (BLR) and Alain SCHMITT (FRA), bronze medallist of the 2013 World Championships in Rio. After only 19 seconds, STSIASHENKA surprised SCHMITT with a o-uchi-gari turned into a uchi-mata, for waza-ari. SCHMITT then scored a yuko with a tai-otoshi. But this was not enough for the French to step on the podium and the victory went to STSIASHENKA.