Inal Tasoev unstoppable with golden performance

In recent months, one of the strong men in the category, undeniably, has been world champion Inal Tasoev (AIN) who has had a serious string of victories, at the world championships of course but also in Ulaanbaatar and Baku more recently. Also in Abu Dhabi's Grand Slam Tasoev was unstoppable.

However, his journey was not that easy today because on the other side he had valiant opponents who did not hesitate to offer him real and skillful opposition. This was the case for the German Losseni Kone for example, who even threw him and scored a well-deserved waza-ari. Tasoev, though, over these recent months has gained confidence. Even in complicated situations, he finds the necessary resources to win.

In the final he was opposed by the other German in this category, Erik Abramov, author of a very good performance, even though he was not one of the favourites of the competition. It took less than a minute for Tasoev to pin down Erik Abramov. He scored ippon and earned a new title.

The first match for a bronze medal was between Saba Inaneishvili (GEO) and Tamerlan Bashaev (AIN). With his small size compared to other athletes in the category, Bashaev is known for going under the centre of gravity of his opponents and that is exactly what he did against Inaneishvili with a superb seoi-nage for ippon. The bronze medal was for Tamerlan Bashaev.

It was finally Jelle Snippe (NED) and Losseni Kone (GER) who closed out the bronze medal matches. Having been penalised twice Snippe was under pressure when he performed a waza-ari-worthy technique, an ashi-waza concluded with an immobilisation for ippon. The bronze medal goes to Jelle Snippe.