Highlights From the Men’s Preliminaries - Day 7

Olympic silver medallist and 2024 world champion Minjong Kim had his first fight drawn against Kenta Nakano, a less well decorated judoka. He might have thought the win was ahead of him but a massive sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi ended his day early, Nakano going through to meet the man of the moment, double world champion Inal Tasoev (RUS).

Inal Tasoev was not in Baku to play any games at all. He sliced through all opposition is if attending a training session. Despite going a yuko down to Nakano, he pulled it back quickly and decisively.

Such is his timing and technical sharpness, he made light work of every challenge and reached the final unscathed.

To meet Tasoev in the final, many contenders had thrown their hats into the ring. Puumaleinen came close, just losing his semi-final to host nation athlete Ushangi Kokauri, a mistake on the part of the Finnish judoka, who was otherwise in great shape in Baku.

Azerbaijan had three worthy entrants in play and all of them worked their way into the final block. Dzhamal Gamzatkhanov Lost his semi-final to Tasoev, as expected but the rest of his day had been a treat for the crowd in the venue and they let him know how thrilled they were, cheering and drumming all day.

With Gamzatkhanov fighting for bronze and Kokauri in the final, that leaves Nasibov’s story still to be told. He defeated Losseni Kone (GER) and Yakiv Khammo (UKR) before losing to compatriot Kokauri in their quarter-final. Winning his repechage contest against Endovitskii (RUS) then placed him in a bronze medal contest against his other teammate. Azerbaijan were guaranteed two medals today but the name on one was undecided while the colour of the other was also up in the air.

To stay on top of all news and results, stay tuned to JudoTV.com. The final block will begin at 6pm local time.