Russian Mikhail Pulyaev new trailblazer U66kg

The new number one of the World Ranking U66kg is Mikhail Pulyaev. Although he was the leader before in February, it is a confirmation that he is the number one choice in this category for quite a while. Since his victory at the Grand Slam in Paris last year he has risen skyhigh in the top 10.

He is in the top 20 since October 2010 when he won the Grand Prix of Rotterdam, but now has enough points to stay in the top of the world. Where in the previous Olympic qualification Musa Mogushkov and Alim Gadanov dominated the events, now both fighters have gone up U73kg and the new generation replaced them with the likes of Pulyaev and Kamal Khan-Magomedov who is now ranked 8th in the list. Pulyaev formally won the quarter final in Chelyabinsk. Pulyaev qualified for the World Championships final, Khan-Magomedov won bronze. Pulyaev is exactly (well, 360 days) younger than Khan-Magomedov.

The enemies so far are the strong Japanese with double World champ Masashi Ebinuma as main man, but also Kengo Takaichi is coming up strongly and youngsters Rokugo and Tateyama. From Europe Giorgii Zantaraia, former #1 from Brazil Charles Chibana beat Pulyaev before. Today he replace Chibana on the World Ranking as leader. Further French David Larose proved to be able to beat Pulyaev last year as well as Israelian Golan Pollack.

So far Pulyaev is the current trailblazer as long as he doesn’t meet Ebinuma who is in our eyes one bridge too far. But didn’t we see judoka shining in the pre Olympic year, while they missed the jackpot in London? Ezio Gamba will for sure launch the right Olympic tactics for one of his jokers in this category, learning from the first round Olympic loss of Mogushkov in 2012.