Levan Matiashvili beats man-mountain Vakhaviak for gold

Georgian heavyweight Levani Matiashvili won his home Grand Prix for the second time in his career to end the Tbilisi tournament with heavyweight gold for the hosts. World number 44 Matiashvili repeated his 2015 Tbilisi win by dispatching Tel Aviv Grand Prix bronze medallist Aliaksandr Vakhaviak (BLR) with a makikomi after four minutes of golden score to send the home crowd wild.

In the first semi-final number one seed Roy Meyer (NED) had to submit to a juji-gatame from Vakhaviak (BLR). In the second semi-final Junior World Championships winner Gela Zaalishvili (GEO) was catapulted towards the tatami by Matiashvili (GEO) with an o-soto-gari for ippon after two minutes of golden score.

The first bronze medal was won by former Baku Grand Slam bronze medallist Onise Bughadze (GEO) who threw teammate Zaalishvili for a waza-ari and held down the youngster with a kami-shiho-gatame for 10 seconds.    

The second bronze medal went to Meyer who used all of his experience to move world number 162 and IJF World Judo Tour newcomer Alen Tskhovrebov (RUS) around the tatami at will as the Grand Prix debutant received three penalties and was disqualified.

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