Sanshiro Murao won his third IJF gold medal

Japan’s Sanshiro Murao is growing from strength to strength, with his second Grand Slam win of the year (and third overall, in his career). Murao’s favorite technique is osoto-gari but in his first match, against Remi Feuillet (MRI), he used uchimata for ippon.

He had a bit of a harrowing time with France’s Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou who threw him in the opening seconds with sumi-gaeshi for waza-ari. Murao returned fire with uchimata for waza-ari, to even up the scores. The match then went into Golden Score where Murao throwing the Frenchman with a tai-otoshi.

Against Cuba's Ivan Felipe Silva Morales, Murao did a big counter with ouchi-gaeshi for a stunning ippon.

Georgia’s powerhouse Beka Gviniashvili also gave Murao a hard time, forcing him to incur two shidos, and taking the match into Golden Score. The Georgian had just attacked with uchimata when Murao replied with a fantastic tani-otoshi, which scored waza-ari, to end the match.

Perhaps inspired by the success of his tani-otoshi against Gvniashvili, Murao tried the same technique in his final against Christian Parlati of Italy. Waza-ari was initially given but it was cancelled by the video judges. The match was in Golden Score when Parlati attempted to do his trademark drop ouchi-gari. His attacking leg missed and the referee gave him his third shido of the match. And with that, Murao won his third IJF gold medal.