Matthias Casse claims gold in Portugal, Fin Makinen steals the show

Belgian Matthias Casse is adding to his service record at a rapid rate: world champion, Olympic bronze, world number one. However, there was a blemish on his resume; Matthias is not good with the Japanese and lost his last four fights against them. In Lisbon came the fifth, Yuhei Oino, who is not Nagase, but the Japanese is always the Japanese and it should not be taken lightly.

Casse won like champions do, with an authoritative ippon, something like a message of the type, "I'm the boss, in case anyone hadn't heard yet." It was like taking off your heels or loosening your tie after a full day at the office. That's why he reached the final focused but with less weight on his shoulders. The nerves were on the other side of the tatami and suffered by Oskari Makinen, a 22-year-old Finn who surprised everyone in Lisbon with an unlimited will and exceptional form. As he is ranked 115th on the World Ranking List, he had nothing to lose against the category boss and those situations are usually the most dangerous for the big fish.

Finnish judo is one the rise with silver this time for Makinen and bronze for heavyweight Puumalainen in Zagreb last year and... albeit in the European Open Turpal Djoukaev last year in Malaga. The best ever performance for men in the IJF World Tour with two medals within six months for the Fins. Headcoach Rok Draksic seems to make a difference. Makinen is the youngest ever medallist for Finland in the World Tour.

Sure enough, Makinen came out without fear, impassive, as if it were a training session. The problem was that Casse didn't find his world championship title in a cereal box. He showed it off with class with eri-seoi-nage but what the Belgian did is more than just win gold. Until now he had never won a grand prix . As of today he is one of the few judoka who has won all the possible titles on the World Judo Tour, that is, grand prix, grand slam, masters and world championships. Casse is building an impressive calling card and as if that wasn't enough, he looks the Japanese in the eye again. 

Korea is being very active in Portugal, France is too. The first bronze was settled between Jonghoon Kim and Nicolas Chilard. The Korean took the lead with waza-ari and then went on to play the clock with some good work in ne-waza. The French never found a way because the Korean had closed it. 

To finish, a duel between two great judo nations: Brazil and Japan. Guilherme Schimidt versus Yuhei Oino fought but it was not a brilliant confrontation. It ended with the elimination of the Brazilian because Oino was better and more clever but it was important for Japan because the country is not shining in Portugal with its young athletes and that is a breaking news.