Peter Kenderesi takes the world title for Hungary

The category U90kg was especially spectacular right from the beginning of the morning session of the last day of the Cadet World Championships, with flying judoka all over the place and ippon being scored one after another. Milan Bulaja was the top favourite of the competition and you could hear it as the audience was cheering loudly for him. This did not disturb Abbos Shermakhmatov (UZB) at all in the semi-final and he defeated Bulaja with style to enter the final, where he was opposed by Peter Kenderesi (HUN).

A first shido was given to Kenderesi, as he was less active than Shermakhmatov, who tried several times to apply his tokui-waza, soto-makikomi. However, Kenderesi produced one of the best groundwork sequences of the whole championship. He began with a sankaku-jime attempt and then used it to turn over Shermakhmatov to pin him down a first time.

Shermakhmatov escaped, but Kenderesi kept the pressure on and turned him around again to conclude the final with a magnificent victory. There was skill involved there and it delivered a great new world champion.

Shermakhamatov (UZB) though was a pleasure to see, he is really quiet and focussed and doesn’t show any emotion until the awarding signal is given by the referee. In his semi-final the Serbian had all the crowd with him and he didn’t let it affect him at all. Having controlled the pace and keeping good form throughout, he used a tomoe-nage right in the last second to win the match and it was so calmly applied, especially considering the two shido against him. This result really went against the room but he held his nerve and with pure judo he reached the final.

Ukraine had one more medal secured as their two athletes in at U90kg, Oleksii Boldyriev (UKR) and Nikita Yudanov (UKR), qualified for the first bronze medal contest. The question is always, how much two competitors from the same nation train together. They obviously knew each other and it made things a bit difficult to throw.

First of all there is the fact that you know what the other does but then it's also a question of supremacy within a delegation, especially when one will get a medal but not the other. Quickly, Yudanov was penalised with two shido, putting him in a difficult situation. With less than one minute left on the clock, the third shido was awarded, Boldyriev taking the bronze medal.

In the second bronze medal contest, Jesse Barbosa (BRA) faced Milan Bulaja (SRB), with the crowd right behind him. The first minutes were an observation phase but with one minute left on the clock, Bulaja and Barbosa engaged in a close battle that looked decisive and it was. Against a large uchi-mata, Barbosa tried to counter but  Bulaja changed to an o-goshi and threw for ippon to get the bronze medal.