Sanshiro Murao takes gold at Grand Slam Kazan

At the Grand Slam in Kazan, the only Japanese participant was the favourite, despite the competition of strong Russian Mikhail Igolnikov. Third in the World Judo Masters, Eduard Trippel (GER) appeared very fit throughout the morning and qualified or the finals U90kg.

Precise and impactful, he won all his matches by ippon, until the final, where he was met by the only Japanese man entered into the event, alongside the three women who competed on the first two days of competition, winning two gold and one bronze medal, respectively.

Murao was the first in action, with an opportunist ko-uchi-gari, but for no score. A few seconds later it was Trippel's turn to be close to scoring but Murao escaped by turning over his opponent without even touching the floor. A handful of seconds later, the Japanese judoka executed the perfect attack inside the attack of Trippel, to score a textbook ippon with a left handed uchi-mata.

Axel Clerget (FRA), who was injured in Doha in January, returned to the forefront by qualifying for the first bronze medal contest, after a serious elimination stage, as he was only stopped in the quarter-final by the German Trippel, who left him no chance. To reach the podium, Clerget was up against Georgian Luka Maisuradze, bronze medallist at the last European Championships in Lisbon. Unfortunately for the Frenchman, an old injury woke up during the beginning of the match and with this handicap he couldn't produce his best judo and was thrown for waza-ari before Maisuradze caught him with an immobilisation for ippon. Let's hope for Clerget that it is not too serious. Approaching the end of his career, he has to manage not only his preparation but also his body and this is not always easy.

23rd in the world rankings and with a bronze medal in Antalya earlier in the season, Li Kochman (ISR) found himself facing the 2017 world champion, Nemanja Majdov (SRB), for the second bronze medal. The first two minutes went very fast, with the two athletes putting a lot of effort in to break the distance and throw, but without any success. The match continued in a similar rhythm, even if some penalties were distributed, two for Majdov, one for Kochman, that would be important in the golden score period. 1 minute and 53 seconds into extra time was when Majdov proved to be an extraordinary champion, after a situation which could have gone either way. He finally pinned down Kochman for ippon. This was definitely a tough day at the office for Majdov, but he can be satisfied with a well deserved bronze medal.