Strong from his seeded position, Yang started his competition perfectly by winning against Seungbeom Jeon (KOR) and Karamat Huseynov (AZE) but in the next round, he was exposed to Ryuju Nagayama (JPN), already crowned twice at the Masters (2017 and 2019). The least we can say is that this competition is particularly successful for this Japanese judoka and he left no chance for his opponent to reach the final, winning comfortably to bring him a third Masters final, this time facing Harim Lee of Korea.
Third less than two weeks ago in Tokyo, Lee appeared in great form again. In the first round, he defeated Yeldos Smetov (KAZ), already three times a world medallist, including one title, but it was some time ago, back in 2015. In the second round Lee faced Francisco Garrigos (ESP), before winning against Turan Bayramov (AZE) in the semi-final.
The final between Ryuju Nagayama (JPN) and Harim Lee (KOR) seemed to approach a conclusion by shido as neither of the finalists seemed to be able to find the slightest space within their opponent’s armour. Thus everyone was expecting a penalty to determine the winner when suddenly Lee launched a combination of ippon-ko-uchi-gari, from which Nagayama could not escape. It was a waza-ari and the gold medal for Lee. The Tokyo Grand Slam was just a warm-up for the Korean judoka. Today he was perfectly prepared to win. He was not the favourite but at the end of the day he is the Masters champion.
In the bronze medal contests we found a strange anomaly with all 3 Azerbaijani athletes winding up contesting the same medal. Huseynov, seeded eighth in the group, was disqualified, giving Aghayev the win in the repechage final to face teammate Bayramov, after he lost to Lee in the semi-final. After a few penalties were given during the first part of the contest, it was eventually Balabay Aghayev who stepped on to the podium after executing two beautiful kata-guruma attacks, the first scoring a waza-ari and the second being a clear ippon.
The other bronze was less delegation-focussed with Sardalashvili (GEO), in the repechage final, pushing Garrigos (ESP) away from the medals to himself fight for bronze against the world number one. The Georgian style is challenging for most but Yang has the pace, the creativity and the determination to cope and this is really a bronze medal match to rub our hands together for. It was still difficult to say who would win after two minutes in normal time, with Yang being more dangerous on the floor, especially with a near miss from sankaku-jime.
Sardalashvili was close to finishing the match with a soto-makikomi technique that didn’t quite make it; definitely a well balanced match, which saw these competitors enter the golden score period. At that point and with only one penalty to each of their names, another four minutes and two more shido for Sardalashvili were necessary for Yang to once again step on the podium of a major international event.
Final (-60 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-60 kg)
