Yeldos Smetov world champion at home in Astana

Who would have thought about an all Kazakhstan World Championships final. Not in the most wet dreams the average judo fan, not even JudoInsiders would have seriously thought about that. Yeldos Smetov and Rustam Ibrayev made that dream come true. A tremendous boost for the organization, for the tournament and World Judo with such success in a country that is known for its wealth in oild and uranium. Although the commodities have fallen, judo is rising and today it was the best possible export of sports wealth.

Yeldos Smetov is the next after Maxim Rakov who won the world title in 2009 as first Kazakh. Now Smetov was the winner, in today’s opening division U60kg.

Smetov who was one of the outsiders for the world title started well with rather easy victories over Juho Reinvall (FIN) and Eisa Majrashi (SAU), Mexican Nabor Castillo was a hard nut while countryman Rustam Ibrayev impressed with good victories over Gerchev (BUL), Preciado (ECU) and 2014 world bronze medallist Amiran Papinashvili of Georgia.

The quarter finals brought Smetov to Diyorbek Urozboev who had outclassed World silver Beslan Mudranov in his first round, but Smetov survived that test against a similar country, Uzbekistan with the same basis of talent in the lightweights. But the home advantage may have been decisive today for Kazakhstan. Ibrayev defeated CHOI In Hyuk of Korea and had to fight World Champion Ganbat. Ibrayev impressed once again with a yuko victory. Smetov fought a tough bout against Toru Shishime of Japan, with a yuko advance, which he never gave away despite three penalties.

The final was less impressive against those two who know eachother so well and fought eachother twice in international events resulting in a draw 1-1. This time it was Smetov who led by one penalty and led the match to the end safely without cheering out of respect of Ibrayev. What a day for Kazakhstan with an amazing crowd boosting the home advantage.

The bronze medal was for Kim Won Jin who defeated World Champion Ganbat Boldbaatar for bronze. In the quarter final he lost to Shishime Toru who took the second bronze after his loss against Smetov but victory over Felipe Kitadai, the Brazilian Olympic medallist in 2012. For Brazil two fifth medals were left, for four competitors today. Not a good test for Rio, although Brazil have more  categories to shine at.

Korea started well as expected and took two bronze medals. Japan won silver and two bronze medals, but gave away a world title to Argentina. Host Kazakhstan leads the  medal table after day 1.