Golden Yoshito Hojo still undefeated in U81kg

The gold medal of the men’s U81kg at the Grand Slam in Dushanbe was won by Japan’s Yoshito Hojo. Hojo, without any major references yet on the international circuit, apart from a victory at the very beginning of the season in Portugal, including wins against Saeid Mollaei (AZE), Joonhwan Lee (KOR) and Vedat Albayrak (TUR) all on the same day. Today the gold medal was again for Hojo, handed out by double Olympic champion Shohei Ono.

In today’s final he started with a super strong kata-guruma attack from Austrian Wachid Borchashvili that was perfectly controlled by Yoshito Hojo. Calm and quiet, the Japanese judoka was just waiting for his moment and it came during a sequence on the floor. Controlling perfectly the upper part of the body of his opponent, he then took his leg out twice. A first waza-ari was followed by a second to wrap up the contest and give him a second victory from only two World Judo Tour participations. Hojo is undefeated at the international level and this may well not stop in the near future.

In a category which is always spectacular and very competitive, we could reasonably expect a great show. Wachid Borchashvili, who made his way through the elimination phases. After a bye, he sent Mohamed Rebâti (QAT) back to the locker room via two waza-ari before the end of time. Then it was the turn of Tomas Morales (ARG) and Zaur Dvalashvili (GEO) before he ruined the final hopes of Timo Cavelius (GER) with a superb kata-guruma for ippon.

The first bronze medal was contested between Dimitri Gochilaidze (GEO) and Timo Cavelius (GER). If the first part of the contest looked a little messy, step by step Gochilaidze took the lead. First, he scored a waza-ari with a counter-attack as Cavelius probably thought that they were already on the floor, but that was not the case. The second score was a massive o-soto-gari turned into an ashi-waza technique for an impressive ippon. The bronze medal was for Gochilaidze and Georgia.

To complete the podium, Adam Kopecky (CZE) and Abylaikhan Zhubanazar (KAZ) met, providing a chance for the number one seed to save his day. Zhubanazar was fast to score a first waza-ari with a change in direction and a kata-guruma conclusion. That should have been a strong warning for Kopecky but that was not enough as Zhubanazar applied exactly the same strategy and technique a little further into the contest to score a second waza-ari. Abylaikhan Zhubanazar wins the bronze.