Inal Tasoev crowned for seventh Grand Slam win

The +100kg category has its strong man, Inal Tasoev. Once again he was crowned with the gold medals. It suits his red world champion back patch. At the Grand Slam in Baky he managed to escape all the traps that stood in his way. The most dangerous was undoubtedly Gela Zaalishvili in the semi-final who knocked him off balance several times without scoring, before Tasoev finally found the solution a few seconds from the end with a timely waza-ari to enter a new final.

At the bottom of the draw, we also witnessed some great contests, the commitment of which was total. Guram Tushishvili has nothing left to prove. The 2018 world champion is one of the leaders in the category. He can win against anyone but his judo is so based on risk-taking that danger for him also lurks at every corner of the tatami. Today, focused and precise, he did not give his opponents a chance and reached the final to join Inal Tasoev, in what promised to be an exciting contest the outcome of which was very uncertain.

The final between the top seed and number three seed started at a slow pace, both men observing the other. The first strong attack came from Tushishvili with a sutemi-waza for no score. A little later, Inal Tasoev countered an uchi-mata attempt from Guram Tushishvili, to score a waza-ari. The Georgian judoka was then penalised a third time. The gold medal went to world champion Inal Tasoev.

In the first contest for a bronze medal we found Imran Yusifov (AZE) and Yerassyl Kazhybayev (KAZ). After almost 2 minutes of golden score, Imran Yusifov was penalised a third time, offering the medal to Yerassyl Kahybayev (KAZ).

Tamerlan Bashaev (AIN) and Gela Zaalishvili (GEO) vied for the podium in the second bout for a bronze medal. You recognise the quality of a judoka, when you know exactly what he is going to do and yet he still does it, it can not be stopped. This happened with Bashaev, whose tokui-waza is a low seoi-nage. Zaalishvili knew it, he knew it perfectly, but there was no way to block it and Tamerlan Bashaev scored one of the ippon scores of the competition with one of his homemade seoi-nage techniques.

The athletes performed spectacular judo throughout the weekend. Spectators created a dynamic, wonderful atmosphere. We created a show to be watched on judoTV throughout the world and reached a record number of spectators.