Despite everything, Vieru arrived in Budapest as world number one, which gave him some confidence. It is in adversity that we recognise the great champions. It's a safe bet that many predicted a complicated path at the Masters for him, if at least he couldn't transcend the doubt that must have settled in his mind.
This Friday, 4th August was therefore an important day and a life-sized test for Vieru. After a first victory against Kubanychbek Aibek Uulu (KGZ), he drew on his reserves against Gusman Kyrgyzbaev (KAZ) to score waza-ari with a shoulder movement during golden score. In the next round he scored a waza-ari mid-contest with a superb action-reaction set-up and mastered the rest of the match with ease. Then in the semi-finals it was the turn of Bogdan Iadov to suffer the law of the Moldovan, to reach the final. In the end, it was both logical and a really nice surprise for Vieru to perform at that level.
In the final, therefore, Vieru faced Tanaka (JPN) in a match that promised to be thrilling, with two judoka of refined styles. We were not disappointed even if we would have loved to see more of this final. After a powerful o-soto-gari, in the air Tanaka changed direction to throw Vieru flat on his back. This is the kind of judo we would have been happy to see again and again, but ippon being ippon, the fight was over and the gold medal went to Ryoma Tanaka.
Erkhembayar Battogtokh (MGL) and Baul An (KOR) fought for a first bronze medal and were pretty even from the get-go, each taking a shido early for holding back their sleeve in the gripping battle. A couple of shido later and 2:25 into golden score, An Baul eventually manage to pull out an uchi-mata for ippon. The bronze medal was for the Korean judoka.
Narmandakh Bayanmunkh (UAE) and Iadov Bogdan (UKR) faced off for the second bronze medal. What an uchi-mata that was from Narmandakh Bayanmunkh, who scored an ippon a little more than half way to the end.
Final (-66 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-66 kg)
