Overview Grand Slam Paris day 2

The French have some finals today at the Grand Slam Paris with Audrey Tcheumeo and Emilie Andeol in the women's division two chances for gold. In the men Alexandre Iddir and Cyrille Maret were inspired by the new environment of the Accor Arena and made it to the final again. Maret can prolong his title. Read about the Preliminaries so far live from Paris.

The women U70kg saw a good Laura Vargas Koch who’s back after her injury. Last week she had a golden warm-up in Lisbon, today she’s in the final against Japanese hope U70kg Haruka Tachimoto. She seems to be back after a false start in Dusseldorf and may still have a good chance to make it to her second Olympic Games. Tachimoto defeated Kim Polling in the quarter final. Polling fights for bronze against Sally Conway, the British who’s performing so well this season.

In the U78kg category Dutch Guusje Steenhuis missed the boat. The winner of two Grand Slams this year lost to Japanese Ruika Sato who reached the final against Audrey Tcheumeo. Finally something to cheer for, for the home crowd. Tcheumeo defeated Gemma Gibbons in the semi final. Also Luise Malzahn who was the highest seed in Paris, lost in the quarter final but she came back but lost again in the repechage to Akari Ogata. The Japanese are back in this category where world champion Mami Umeki is even missing.

Emilie Andeol defeated World Champion Yu Song in the semi final +78kg. European Champion Andeol can now try to wipe out her silver medal of last year. The World Champion will face Larisa Ceric for bronze. In a field of 16 women, this category isn’t the strongest but at least surprising. Franziska Konitz beat Zambotti in the semi final and will be the opponent of the tiny French. In head2heads it’s 4-4, so they know eachother pretty well.

Uzbekistan have a new Sobirov, Shaxzod was always an average fighter but now he reached the final of the Grand Slam in Paris, that makes a huge difference. He defeated Otgonbaatar (MGL) while Sergey Ryabov, another surprise from Russia defeated Adrian Nacimiento of Spain. All seeded players were defeated, none of them won their pool. Shaxzod Sobirov defeated Dutchman Frank de Wit in the quarter final but he came back and fights for bronze. Russian champion Ryabov defeated Goki Maruyama. He will take his first international medal today.

U90kg Varlam Liparteliani met the expectations and reached the final. The Georgian defeated Aleksandr Kukolj of Serbia who had the best ever performance of a Serbian fighter. Never they reached higher then seventh in Paris.

Lukas Krpalek seems somewhat distracted since his marriage this year. This time Cyrille Maret defeated him in the semi final and Maret is favoured to prolong last year’s title in Paris. Krpalek can take bronze against Croatian Sensation Zlatko Kumric. Maret’s opponent is Rafael Buzacarini who takes his first medal at a Grand Slam. He was only in the final of the Grand Prix in Almaty in 2013 and he can stunt to take the title. For Buzacarini this can be his most important battle to qualify for Rio de Janeiro, where he’s in a battle with good old Luciano Correa and Hugo Pessanha. World number one Elmar Gasimov will fight Michael Korrel (NED) who won in Glasgow last week. Korrel defeated 2013 World Champion Elkhan Mammadov.

In the men’s heavyweight category Hisayoshi Harasawa will face David Moura of Brazil. Moura defeated the higher seeded Roy Meyer, but he came back and will fight for bronze against big man Faical Jaballah, the highest seeded in advance.