Varlam Liparteliani dominates U90kg despite injury

Dusseldorf was looking forward the category U90kg. Varlam LIPARTELIANI (GEO) confirmed his first place in the world ranking list by entering the final, hoping that he would not imitate his teammate Avtandili TCHRIKISHVILI who lost in yesterday’s final of the -81kg category. The big surprise came from the presence of the Russian, Kazbek ZANKISHIEV, to face the Georgian for the Grand Prix title.

Only ranked 120 in the world, ZANKISHIEV only had a silver medal at the Tallin European Cup, obtained in September 2014, so far. But throughout the preliminaries, he showed great skills and consistency, successively defeating Mihail MARCHITAN (UAE), Guillaume ELMONT (NED), Mewene FEKIR (ALG), Nikoloz SHERAZADISHVILI (ESP) and NISHIYAMA Daiki (JPN) in the semi-final.

After 25 seconds, LIPARTELIANI launched a first homemade uchi-mata, but ZANKISHIEV easily escaped for no score. But being less active than the Georgian, the Russian was penalized with a first shido, followed a few seconds later by a second one. Just after the first three minutes, and a long ground work session, world number one, LIPARTELIANI, immobilized his opponent in an uncomfortable position, but could keep the hold until the end for ippon.

The winner of the Tokyo Grand Slam, GWAK Dong Han (KOR) and the two-time world silver medallist, NISHIYAMA Daiki (JPN), were opposed in the first bronze medal fight of the day. After three minutes NISHIYAMA scored a superb sode-tsuri-komi-goshi for ippon. But the score was changed to waza-ari after the action was replayed by the refereeing commission. The Japanese who already celebrated his victory, had to refocus and was finally able to win the bronze medal.

The second bronze medal fight opposed the number 23 on the world ranking list Aleksandar KUKOLJ (SRB) and the world number 9, Beka GVINIASHVILI (GEO), who finished first in Ulaanbaatar last year. The Georgian secured the bronze medal with a single yuko obtained with an opportunist counterattack.