Ryuju Nagayama shows his best in Tashkent

World Number one, Nagayama Ryuju of Japan, could scare all his opponents in Tashkent and they would have been forgiven. While the Japanese team, despite his world ranking, did not select him for the Olympic Games, with the AJJF selecting Takato Naohisa, Nagayama nonetheless retains the necessary motivation to perform at the highest level.

This, once again, demonstrates the incredible depth of Japan in the lightweight categories. Ruining the hopes of the home nation, by eliminating the Uzbek Kemran Nurillaev (UZB) in the semi-final, Nagayama qualified for the final, where he was up against Yeldos Smetov (KAZ), the 2015 world champion.

After a few seconds, with a superb sode-tsuri-komi-goshi, that made Smetov draw a sun on the horizon of the Humo Arena, Nagayama was close to scoring, but like a cat, the Kazakh escaped and landed on his stomach. The very next attack earned a waza-ari for the Japanese judoka, from a left-handed morote-seoi-nage. The task seemed a little too difficult for Smetov, who kept attacking but could not overcome the challenge. Until the last second, Nagayama was still dangerous, almost scoring a second waza-ari with a counterattack, but the score remained the same. Nagayama could enjoy the victory with the characteristic Japanese calmness and respect.

In the first match for a bronze medal, we found the Frenchman Luka Mkheidze opposed to Karamat Huseynov (AZE). Throughout the day, the French fighter gave hope to the French men's team who are in search of results, still looking for a full quota of Olympic qualifiers. The medal went to Mkheidze, on the podium for only the second time at a grand slam, after Huseynov was disqualified for applying a forbidden technique.

Shahboz Saidaburorov (TJK), whose honour roll on the international circuit is as yet blank, faced Kemran Nurillaev (UZB), silver medalist at the Antalya Grand Prix in 2019. To the delight of the public, Nurillaev took his first medal in a grand slam after Saidaburorov received a third penalty, to disqualify him.