Ramadan Darwish brings gold back to Egypt

A big team from Egypt had flown into Hungary to fight at the Grand Prix in Budapest. World Judo Masters bronze medallist Ramadan Darwish continued his rich vein of form in Budapest as he defeated German Olympic bronze medallist Dimitri Peters for the top spot. Peters lost their last meeting in the first round of the recent World Judo Masters in Rabat, Morocco, and cut a forlorn figure after conceding this one which was decided only on shido penalties.

In the first semi-final Peters downed the grafter Martin Pacek (SWE) by just a shido while in the second semi-final Baku Grand Slam winner Adlan Bisultanov (RUS) was thwarted by Darwish. The Egyptian fighter went close with an ouchi-gari and, having been behind to a yuko, with six seconds left his work ethic was rewarded with ippon from an uchi-mata. Darwish last victory was at the Grand Prix in Tashkent last year.

The first bronze medal was won by Bisultanov as 21-year-old Zlatko Kumric (CRO), who finished fifth at the Junior World Championships, was thrown with a ura-nage after a tame ashi-waza attempt was countered with 97 seconds left. The second bronze medal was captured by Tokyo Grand Slam bronze medallist Artem Bloshenko (UKR) who beat Pacek in a scoreless contest. Bloshenko was penalised once while Pacek received three penalties to suffer back-to-back defeats and the Swedish fighter had to settle for fifth-place.