2023 junior European champion Bright Maddaloni-Nosa (ITA) fought through to round three and there threw Azat Kumisbay of the home team with a well timed o-uchi-gari to move into a quarter-final against the number one seed, Olympic and double world medallist Joonhwan Lee (KOR). Lee took just under a minute to counter Maddaloni-Nosa for ippon.
On the bottom half of the draw Manuel Parlati (ITA) took out Gansukh (MGL) and Almeida (BRA) before meeting double Olympic champion Takanori Nagase (JPN) in the pool C final. What an incredible opportunity for the youngster to test himself against the very best; he pushed hard and ensured Nagase would have to work hard for the win. In the end the contest was decided at the beginning of golden score on penalties, an impressive showing for Parlati.
Lee and Nagase took to the mat for perhaps the most predictable final line-up of the whole tournament, highly anticipated by all. It is important to remember that Lee is 2-1 up on aggregate and not many can say that about their meetings with any double Olympic champion. Lee, 22 years old, and Nagase, 31 years old, represent two different generations in the sport but have come to respect each other immensely on the judo mat and their rivalry is one that thrills audiences the world over.
Fascinating kumi-kata phases dominated the proceedings but until the golden score period begn, not many big attacks were attempted. However, as the first minute of extra time passed, Lee dropped underneath Nagase and threw with an impressively fast seoi-otoshi, rolling the Olympic champion off the wroing side but logging the much-needed score. Lee takes it to 3-1; gold for Korea and silver for Japan.
The first bronze medal contest saw Zaur Dvalashvili (GEO), who won against Maddaloni-Nosa in the repechage, against David Karapetyan (IJF). It was an acrobatic contest but eventually Dvalashvili found a perfect entry and threw for the win, a huge sode-tsuri-komi-goshi was his weapon of choice.
For the second bronze medal of the category, Manuel Parlati would face both Zhubanazar (KAZ) and the venue’s spectators. Zhubanazar had hoped to be in the final with the opportunity of performing in front of his country’s president, maybe even winning the gold medal and ensuring the Kazakh national anthem would be heard, but Joonhwan Lee had taken care of business throwing him for a yuko and ippon in the semi-final.
Parlati had high hopes but fighting against Zhubanazar on his turf was always going to be a tall order. The Kazakh fighter did his job admirably and threw Parlati with a rolling uchi-mata for ippon after just 26 seconds.
Final (-81 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-81 kg)
