World championship – Day 5

This day brought us the heavyweights of both men and women, with men under and over 100Kg and women over 78Kg.

Men -100Kg
This category, with 43 entrants, had several competitors that in a given day could win a medal. This list includes the world champion Luciano Correa from Brazil, Grol Henk from the Netherlands, Elco Van Der Geest who represented Belgium for the first time, the European champion, Tagir Khaibulaev from Russia, Takamasa Anai from Japan, Olympic and World champion under 90Kg, Irakli Tsirekladze from Georgia, Daniel Brata from Romania, bronze medallist Oreydis Despaigne from Cuba, and Olympic bronze medallist from Athens, Ariel Zeevi from Israel.

All of these players, except Grol and Anai were knocked-out of the competition at an early stage, when only Grol reached the semi-final.

Grol, silver at the last European championship, bronze in last year’s Olympic Games, had suffered a knee injury before the championship, but although dragging in leg, he used is powerful grip to paralyse his opponents. In the semi-final he fought Artem Bloshenko from Ukraine and after 3:35 minutes without any risky attacks from either side, Grol executed a well-timed Kouchi-gari to be awarded full Ippon.

In the final Grol met Maxim Rakov from Kazakhstan, who beat Elmar Gasimov from Azerbijian. While no clear domination was seen, Rakov managed to role Grol for a Yuko after 2:31 minutes. A minute to the end, Rakov had been penalised and the fighters were even once again. 20 seconds later, Rakov executed a drop Soei-nage and was awarded an Ippon and the Gold medal. Grol was very disappointed with this loss and for long seconds was lying on the mat with his head in his hands. Great performance by the young Kazakh that moved into this division a year ago.

The Bronze medal went to the Japanese and to Ramadan Darwish from Egypt.

Men +100Kg
Teddy Riner had won his third(!) world championship and he is only 20 years old, 1 of which is the World Open Judo championship. In the final he had beaten Oscar Bryson from Cuba by penalties.

Other events at this division were the first round lose of Alexander Mikhaylin to the local Dutch, Grim Vuijstres, who lost to Yasuyuki Muneta, who in turn lost to Gankhuyag Dorjpalam from Mongolia. Muneta, who injured his shoulder at the beginning of the match, could not overcome to pain to perform at his best and lost by Hansoku-make.

The Bronze medals went to Marius Paskevicius from Lithuania, and Abdullo Tangriev from Uzbekistan.

Women +78Kg
This weight division has been dominated by Wen Tong of China, who hasn’t lost a match since February 2007. This is her fifth(!) World championship title after winning the World Open Judo championship, World Championship in 2003, 2005, and 2007. She has also won this division in Beijing last year.
All of her fights together took under 7 minutes, winning all the fights with Ippons. In the final she met Karina Bryant from Great Britain, who she met twice before at the previous 2 World championship finals. The Chinese girl was very aggressive and scored an Ippon after 1:36 minutes with a drop Seoi-nage.

The Bronze medals went to Olympic Silver medallist from Beijing and Olympic champion from Athens, Maki Tsukda from Japan, and Olympic bronze medallist from Beijing, the 19 year old, Idalis Ortiz Boucort from Cuba.

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