Fourth Grand Prix victory in Zagreb for Krisztian Toth

Krisztian Toth (HUN) arrived in Zagreb as the number 1 seed, having been among the best in the world ranking for many years. He first appeared on the World Judo Tour back in 2011, as a fresh-faced teenager and, to be honest, he has rarely slowed down. He’s a judoka who will fight anyone on any given day and continues to be one of the most consistent medal-winners in the world.

An Olympic bronze in 2021 joined forces with his 2014 junior world gold and senior world silver. He won medals at 15 of his 23 grand prix events, 13 of 24 grand slams and has a Masters silver too. Fighting Toth means acknowledging that the statistics are on his side. His tokui-waza is also not an opponent's friend because no matter how correctly it is anticipated, Toth still manages to find or make the space required; it was the winning throw in his first second contests.

Unseeded Kaljulaid (EST) came through the bottom of pool A to meet Toth in the quarter-final and went much the same way. His semi-final opponent was Gantulga (MGL) who took his pool by storm, dispatching Adam Borchashvili (AUT), 4th seed Mosakhlishvili (ESP) and Knauf (USA), completely against any public predictions, to set up a potentially fiery contest with Belgium’s Sami Chouchi. That too went the Mongolian’s way!

On the bottom half of the sheet Macedo (BRA) obeyed his ranking, just as Toth did at the top of the draw, bulldozing every challenge, through to a tantalising quarter-final against world silver medallist Zgank (TUR) but there his ranking couldn’t save him and the experienced Turk took the win. Zgank, seeded 7th, hasn’t had a World Judo Tour medal for 18 months and clearly it has been frustrating but in Zagreb he looked set to turn his own tables and find a podium finish.

Nieto Trinidad (ESP) was the last barrier between Zgank and the guarantee of a medal and in their semi-final a flurry of untidy seoi-otoshi and uchi-mata attacks from the Spaniard gave the Turk ample time to build position and begin applying his ko-uchi-gari and tomoe-nage attacks, far more precisely than his opponent. In fact, Nieto Trinidad picked up two penalties in normal time while Zgank continued to manage the fight carefully, making no mistakes, every ko-uchi-gari moving his rival. A third penalty, this time for passivity, came for the Spanish judoka and Zgank could breathe a sigh of relief, moving into his first final since Tel Aviv 2020.

Chouchi bounced back from his quarter-final loss, winning in the repechage against Kaljulaid, to put himself into the first bronze medal contest, against Nieto Trinidad. It was a largely uneventful contest but a small mistake from the Spanish fighter gave a little space to Chouchi for a borderline counter. It was given a waza-ari, enough for the win, the medal and the points.

The second bronze would be heading back to either Brazil with Macedo or Mongolia with Gantulga, after Toth again applied an effective seoi-otoshi to win a long but well fought semi-final. This medal fight was at a different level from the first; more precision, a raised energy and a lot of good ashi-waza. With a minute gone Gantulga attempted to counter some nifty Brazilian footwork with his own sweep but Macedo was more than ready and executed a brilliant te-waza for waza-ari. The quality of attack seemed to decrease from that moment as Macedo did everything to defend his score and Gantulga gained impetus but at the expense of precision. The bronze was destined for Brazil.

The final was certainly not the prettiest contest of the day, with so much experience on the mat that the two men almost cancelled each other out, an attack for an attack, a shido for a shido. That is not to say they didn’t aim for ippon, just they are each too wise to allow the other the chance to capitalise on a mistake.

Eventually Toth took the victory by way of a third shido for Zgank but he said afterwards, "We know each other really well having fought maybe 18 or 20 times on the World Judo Tour. A 2010 Zagreb Junior European Cup  final was our first time, 13 years ago. We each know what to expect from the grips of the other and so I just think maybe I had slightly better conditioning today, such a small difference. He's a great guy and a great judoka."