European final with Matvey Kanikovskiy as exception in Tokyo

There was no Japanese judoka qualified for the final U100kg in Tokyo. Instead we found Gennaro Pirelli (ITA) and Matvey Kanikovski (IJF), reigning European champion and already the holder of 3 gold medals from grand slams.

This European final was therefore expected to be explosive. Kanikovski quickly showed that he had control of the situation. After several attempts to throw, it was on the floor that he found the solution to armlock Pirelli; ippon and the gold medal.
Japan could still hope for two bronze medals, thanks to Dota Arai, qualified against Leonardo Goncalves (BRA) and Koki Kumasaka, who faced Kyle Reyes (CAN).
In the contest of Leonardo Goncalves and Dota Arai, it only took 10 seconds for Arai to score ippon with an aerial uchi-mata, but the score was reduced to waza-ari. In less than a minute, the Japanese judoka proved that he was the strongest by scoring a clear ippon, this time with a ko-soto-gari. 
Between Koki Kumasaka and Kyle Reyes, things went differently as the competitors had to use golden score to determine the winner. With two shido to his name, Reyes was under pressure. This is when the contest really started to get exciting. Kumasaka and Reyes were attacking non-stop and every move was dangerous, every technique was putting the opponent out of balance and he had to produce an outstanding effort to stay in the game. Nobody could tell who the winner would be; a golden score just the way we like them. Eventually it was Kyle Reyes who took the bronze medal after scoring ippon with an incredible uchi-mata but a good contest only happens when both judoka give all they have. This was the case and it was beautiful.