Japanese Aaron Wolf takes down Olympic Champ and snatches gold

Junior World Championships bronze medallist Wolf Aaron (JPN) won his first World Judo Tour gold medal in only his second senior international competition as Qingdao Grand Prix winner Martin Pacek (SWE) was beaten for gold. In the first Grand Prix of his career Tokai University member Wolf, 19, who started his day by beating Olympic champion Khaibulaev (RUS) by ippon with a sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, was sublime.

His opponent Pacek appeared to be in some discomfort as he held his lower back during a momentary stoppage in the action and only managed a tame uchi-mata attack before being held down with a kami-shiho-gatame for 20 seconds.  

In the first semi-final Pacek narrowly defeated former Junior World Championships bronze medallist Benjamin Fletcher (GBR) by a waza-ari with 20 seconds left. In the second semi-final former Samsun Grand Prix bronze medallist Javad Mahjoub (IRI) was caught by Wolf who perfectly countered his opponent with an emphatic osoto-gari for ippon with a minute remaining.

The first bronze medal was won by beaten semi-finalist Mahjoub who beat BAYARSAIKHAN Ambaselmaa (MGL) with a koshi-jime in 31 seconds. Mahjoub, to his credit, immediately checked on the condition of his opponent who gingerly returned to his feet following the shime-waza and embraced one another as they left the field of play. The second bronze medal was won by Tunisia African Open winner Fletcher who bested world number 140 Bunddorj Janchivdorj (MGL) to win his first medal on the World Judo Tour. With older sister Megan, who was in action on Saturday, looking on anxiously in the crowd, Fletcher acquitted himself well against home fighter Bunddorj who was overpowered on the ground with a tight kuzure-tate-shiho-gatame trapping the Mongolian for 20 seconds and ippon.

FLETCHER said: “It’s an amazing feeling to win my first Grand Prix medal, I self-funded to be here and made it count today. I fought two of my Mongolian opponents here recently when I was here for a training camp so that really helped me. I have to thank my parents for their support and everyone at home along with my sister who is here.”