The -73kg category was very interesting today because we had the young Brazilian David Lima who was new on the circuit but had a very good competition. He started with tough contests as he beat France’s Benjamin Axus and top seed Tommy Macias of Sweden.
He was one of the highlights for me along with Nils Stump from Switzerland who finished fifth today. Most of the judoka in the category were well-known but that was not the case for Stump who is now one to watch in the category.
In the -81kg category Nagase Takanori was the best all day long but Anri Egutidze confirmed his quality by winning his first Grand Slam medal and there was a lot of good contests in this category.
Parlati of Italy showed his potential in senior level while Russia’s Olympic champion Khalmurzaev had a day to forget.
Generally speaking the rhythm was very good and the quality of judo was higher today than yesterday.
The -63kg category saw Brazil’s Quadros claim gold and it’s always nice to see a local athlete win.
China were represented by two women at -63kg today and that’s encouraging from them. They usually have a good women’s programme and they seem to be getting the timing right as we approach Tokyo 2020.
There was a good performance from Cuba’s Del Toro Carvajal who actually beat both Chinese judoka on her way to winning her first Grand Slam medal.
The final was Brazil versus Brazil and it’s no easy to have an exciting fight when you have two judoka from the same country but this was a good one. Quadros was on fire all day long and it was a big win for her.
In the -70kg category Colombia’s Alvear was unbelievable. She beat a member of the new generation in Scoccimarro of Germany. It was Alvear’s day today and I was happy to see her back like this after some testing results recently.
It's a very tough category with a lot of Pan American influence and they’re always strong in this weight for some reason.
Ippon of The Day: Anri Egutidze (POR) v Khasan Khalmurzaev (RUS) -81kg bronze medal contest – ura-nage
Man of The Day: Nagase Takanori (JPN)
Women of The Day: Yuri Alvear (COL)
IJF IT team member Elisabetta Fratini is a black belt judoka from Italy with a wealth of experience of working on the IJF World Judo Tour. ‘Eli’ controls the running order of the competition during the event days and manages the accreditation process as well as formulating the official IJF World Ranking List among other duties.