Caramnob Sagaipov (LBN) pushed hard in their pool final, having already taken great wins against Ogawa (KOR) and Huang (CHN) but Arai was just too good. Strong, confident and of course technical, 20 year old Arai moved, attacked and scored with the feeling, for those watching, that it would have been impossible for him to go anywhere other than the final.
Two of the other top seeds, Veg (HUN) and Bilalov (IJF) didn’t follow Arai’s example, losing out in the quarter-final and round of 16 respectively. Veg then lost again in the repechage, the Lebanese fighter getting the better of him.
Daniel Eich (SUI), however, was on fantastic form, beating Serbian and Kazakh opponents on his way to the semi-final. There he passed Baikamurov, also of Kazakhstan, to find himself in the final facing a determined young Japanese judoka.
In the first bronze medal contest Baikamurov (KAZ) faced Sagaipov (LBN). It was an all-action contest but at the end of time there was nothing to split the fighters and so the golden score period was needed, but as soon as had it began, Marat Baikamurov launched a devastating o-uchi-gari which propelled Sagaipov on to his back. The crowd erupted and waved their flags; they had their first medallist of the day!
Bakzhan Baitas gave the host nation a second chance to raise the Kazakh flag over the podium in this category but he was due to stand in front of Adam Sangariev (IJF) to do so. Sangariev, however, was unable to compete and so Kazakhstan had a second medal at -100 kg.
In the final Daniel Eich decided the only way to have a chance of winning was to take the fight straight to Arai and so he did just that. He attacked first in almost every excahnge but Arai is a master of physical anticipation and found either a counter or an escape to every one. Arai even scored with o-uchi-gari as a counter to Eich's sasae in a fantastic moment of spacial awareness.
Eich then increased the pace further and closed the distancce right down atttempting to pick up the young Japanese star. He did so twice and very nearly scored twice but Arai escaped again. In a third attempt at the grappling style, Arai again tried to counter but in an unexpected twist Eich switched technique when almost thrown himself and scored his own waza-ari with a beautiful, low uchi-mata.
Arai's answer to Eich's equaliser? To throw him right back with his own uchi-mata for ippon. This was an incredible final, one which ended with the two men showing great respect for one another with a shared nod. It was clear both enjoyed the contest, the purest kind of commitment to their craft.
Final (-100 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-100 kg)
