World number one Yang Yung Wei claims gold

Currently world number one, since his silver medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Yung Wei Yang (TPE) is a serious client for medals on the World Judo Tour. Regularly placed, but more rarely a winner, Yang had one more chance to put his name at the top of the results, as he reached the final against Ramazan Abdulaev, already a finalist in Paris in October and bronze medallist in Tel Aviv and Kazan earlier in the season.

It is interesting to note that although we are in a transition period between Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, many athletes like Yang and Abdulaev are already positioned among the best. They store experience at the highest level, an experience that could serve them well in the near future.

The first seconds showed immediately Abdulaev's tactics against the Olympic silver medallist: to be aggressive and push him hard in tachi-waza and ne-waza. After 1 and a half minutes things started to settle down, offering more opportunities for Yang to score. With fifteen seconds left on the clock, Yang eventually scored with a powerful seoi-nage to win his first gold medal in a grand slam, confirming his good results of the past months.

Being 118th in the world ranking, Cédric Revol (FRA) was not among the favourites of the competition. He nevertheless found himself in a position to stand on the podium, with just the Ukrainian Dilshot Khalmatov, seventh in Zagreb in September, between him and the prize. Revol scored the first waza-ari with a beautiful morote-seoi-nage to take a strong lead. The shido that were then distributed could not change the final results and Revol added one more medal to the French delegation already present with three finalists on the first day of competition.

Samuel Hall surprised all in Zagreb in September by winning the silver medal. The question was whether he could repeat his feat. This was almost the case, since once again the British judoka entered the final block; this time for a possible bronze medal against the second Ukrainian Oleh Veredyba, a newcomer, with just a junior bronze medal since last September. It took little over thirty seconds for Hall to follow a missed seoi-nage attempt with a perfectly executed turn-over to pin down his opponent for ippon.