Aaron Wolf prolongs Asian success in Tashkent

First time Grand Prix finalist Zlatko Kumric of Croatia met in-form Ulaanbaatar Grand Prix winner Wolf Aaron (JPN) in the -100kg final and it was the Japanese teenager who seized the moment. Wolf, 19, remained unbeaten on the Grand Prix stage with two gold medals from two outings as the Tokai University member pushed rank outsider Kumric to concede four shidos and hansoku-make.

In the first semi-final Kumric (CRO) impressively tapped out 21-year-old IJF World Judo Tour debutant Niiaz Bilalov (RUS) with a juji-gatame before the Russian was horizontal on the tatami. In the second semi-final Wolf (JPN) beat Tbilisi Grand Prix bronze medallist Jevgenijs Borodavko (LAT) with a waza-ari from a sasae-tsurikomi-ashi and applied the osaekomi for 15 seconds for his second and match-winning waza-ari.  

The first bronze medal was won by former Baku Grand Slam bronze medallist Soyib Kurbonov (UZB) by ippon with 90 seconds left in the contest having trailed to a waza-ari against Borodavko (LAT) who slipped to back-to-back defeats. The second bronze medal was won by world number 76 Bilalov of Russia who convincingly dispatched world number 86 and former Minsk European Open winner Delvert (FRA). The Russian judoka drove his French foe over a beautiful low tai-otoshi for waza-ari before adding a yuko score and no fightback materialised from Delvert.