Victor Penalber takes another men's gold for Brazil

Brazilian World number five Victor Penalber won the Grand Slam in Tyumen U81kg as he defeated Baku Grand Slam gold medallist Alan Khubetsov of Russia in the final on Sunday. Khubetsov, 21, who was aiming to win only Russia’s second gold medal of the competition, was denied on home soil by a waza-ari score which was the only one registered in the final. World Military Championships winner Penalber had good memories of Tyumen having won bronze at the World Judo Masters here last year.

In the first semi-final Khubetsov was successful against American Havana Grand Prix silver medallist Travis Stevens. The Russian went ahead with a yuko from a morote seoi-nage before the American replied with a uki-goshi to restore parity. Stevens, who always seems to relish fighting home judoka, received a penalty for a false attach while Khubetsov was penalised for passivity to send the contest into golden score. After an extra 47 seconds Stevens who had just attacked with a sumi-gaeshi, was penalised for passivity to hand the Russian victory. In the second semi-final Penalber denied Olympic bronze medallist Antoine Valois-Fortier of Canada in 12 seconds with an osoto-gari to reiterate his desire to top the podium in Tyumen.

The first bronze medal was won by Valois-Fortier who was triumphant against Qingdao Grand Prix bronze medallist Arsen Pshmakov (RUS) who finished fifth at the Russian Grand Slam last year. After a lengthy delay of four minutes because of an inadvertent clash of heads, Pshmakov toiled and had to pay with the ultimate penalty for his inferior workrate as he accumulated four shido penalties to be disqualified. The second bronze medal went to former European u23 Championships silver medallist Stanislav Semenov (RUS) who – having finished fifth at the Russian Grand Slam last year – come from behind to defeat Stevens. The in-form American went ahead with a yuko from a uchi-mata and doubled his lead with a second yuko before Semenovpounced to win his country’s first medal on day two by ippon from a ko-soto-gake with 39 seconds remaining.