Junior world title for Ilia Sulamanidze

One of the most competitive weigth division for men is the U100kg class. Always represented by strong Russian and Georgian athletes. This time at the Junior world in Olbia Uzbekistan and Georgia are two major players on the World Judo Tour, so finding competitors coming from those two countries was not really a surprise. The whole morning session was dominated by the two judoka, Sukhrob Rajabov (UZB) Ilia Sulamanidze (GEO), who moved a lot of weight to clear the patch in front of them.

We had to wait until the last minute to see the first score of the final, when Ilia Sulamanidze executed a perfect okuri-ashi-barai. Already the winner of several World Judo Tour medals, of the senior world championships bronze medal in Budapest this year and a former junior world silver medallist, 2021 is his year to become the new junior world champion too.

Ilia Sulamanidze said, "Before the final my coach was talking a lot and I said, ‘don’t worry, I’m ready.’ I started slowly and after 2 minutes I started to push. Then I threw just as I expected."

The first bronze medal was disputed between Viktor Adam (SVK) and Matvey Kanikovsiy (RUS) and it was the Russian who scored the first waza-ari and kept dominating the match before scoring a superb ippon with ashi-guruma to seal the deal.

Another Uzbek competitor was also present in the final block: Utkirberk Toroboyev. He qualified for the second bronze medal contest, to fight against German Kilian Kappelmeier and during a tough match scored two waza-ari to win what was still the first medal of the Uzbek team before the final took place.