French boys take the power: Zacharie Dijol adds second gold

Zacharie Dijol grabbed world power in the cadet division at the World Championships in Sarajevo. Dijol was ranked in the top 8 in the U55kg and clearly he had a great desire to win. The final between Orujzade and Dijol was therefore full of promise. Shahin Orujzade (AZE) was the number one seed at the beginning of the tournament and that it was not really surprising to find him at this level.

The first to attack was from Shahin Orujzade with his tomoe-nage, but maybe it was a little too obvious, so Dijol easily read his opponent's move. On his side, the French judoka was trying to find some opportunities with his shoulder movement, but was no more successful than his counterpart. Dijol was then penalised for passivity, before Orujzade earned his shido for the same reason. The athletes offered a pleasant contest though and then offered us some extra-time in golden score. This was the moment Orujzade chose to use his head to apply a technique. He was logically penalised for the head dive, sending a second gold medal to France.

Much to the delight of Elnur Mammadli, Olympic champion in 2008 in Beijing and now vice-president of the Azerbaijan Judo Federation, celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, his athlete moved into the final; this must have given him great pleasure.

For bronze, Roy Rubinstein (ISR) faced the first Georgian of the category, Daviti Lomitashvili (GEO). It is with one shido apiece that the two judoka entered golden score after a score-free initial 4 minutes. With a superb sumi-gaeshi Lomitashvili dropped under his opponent to score a waza-ari and win the bronze medal.

Anvarjon Ibrohimov (UZB) was opposed by the second Georgian, Saba Sabashvili (GEO). Anvarjon Ibrohimov thought he had scored a beautiful waza-ari with a powerful kata-guruma. The match stopped for a little while to revise the decision, but it did not go in the direction Ibrohimov though it would. He was penalised for leg grabbing his opponent during the execution of his movement. Thus, the waza-ari became a shido; not exactly the same. Despite this, Ibrohimov was the most active but was penalised a second time. In golden score, against all odds, it was Saba Sabashvili who scored ippon with a masterpiece, driving and o-uchi-gari that literally pinned his opponent on to his back. The bronze medal was for Sabashvili.