Golden Lukas Krpalek prolongs title and prefers heavyweight class for Olympics

The top three seeds in the +100kg category at the Upper Austria Grand Prix 2024 were all former world champions. Andy Granda (CUB), Guram Tushishvili (GEO) and title defender Lukas Krpalek (CZE). Krpalek deliberately chose for Linz again to make his preparations. He fought in Austria for years and it’s close to Prague and a lot of fans were able to cheer for the Olympic Champion on the stands.

Cuba’s Andy Granda had a smooth path to the final but no less impressive. He threw Solis (CHI) with a beautiful sode-tsurikomi-goshi for ippon just over a minute into their round 2 contest. Under pressure on the edge of the area against Evgeny Shmachilin (ISR) in their quarter-final, he threw the Israeli with a clean uchi-mata-makikomi to score ippon once more.

In the final the two fighters were evenly matched in the standing phases, but it was Krpalek’s superior ne-waza skills that made the difference in the final. Following a strong attack from Granda, Krpalek latched onto the Cuban’s outstretched arm and applied juji-gatame to submit him in the 3rd minute of the contest. An elated Krpalek let out a roar as he stood up; despite all his success he was clearly overjoyed to win a phenomenal 6th grand prix gold medal.

A tactical victory over a spirited Losseni Kone (GER) in their semi-final set up a meeting with Krpalek. The two have only fought once before on the IJF World Tour, in the final of the Cancun Grand Prix way back in 2018. There, Krpalek emerged victorious in a close contest, so Granda had a score to settle.

Tushishvili came up against Shmachilin in the first bronze medal match. The Georgian needed only one minute to secure his 4th grand prix medal, throwing his opponent with uchi-mata to score waza-ari, before pinning the Israeli down using yoko-shiho-gatame to secure the win. It was not only a solid performance from Tushishvili but also a career-best finish for the world-ranked number 130 Shmachilin.

The second bronze medal contest was a showdown between Gamzatkhanov and Kone. The German initially struggled to deal with the much bigger Azeri, with several of his sumi-gaeshi attacks landing him in trouble on the ground. Gamzatkhanov was unable to capitalise, however, and in the final minute of the contest, Kone produced arguably the throw of the tournament. His opponent stepped across with o-soto-gari, and Kone loaded him onto his hips and sent him flying through the air using utsuri-goshi, a technique seldom seen at the highest level. That beautiful ippon landed the German his second grand prix medal. What a way to do it.

With Tushishvili and Krpalek in the same half of the draw, a repeat of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic final was on the cards. The two athletes worked hard to give judo fans what they wanted. Tushishvili defeated Mane (GBS) in round 2, twice throwing with tsuri-goshi. He then threw Krikbay (KAZ) in round 3 with a low o-uchi-gari which scored waza-ari, enough to see him through. In his quarter-final with Dzhamal Gamzhatkhanov (AZE), he employed ippon-seoi-nage and ko-uchi-gari to score two waza-aris and confirm his semi-final spot.

Krpalek is expected to compete in the heavyweight category at the Olympic Games, with his current weight likely making it difficult to drop. He faces a choice between the European Championships or the World Championships as preparation for the Paris Games, but not both, to optimize his training and readiness.