In the final Hayato Kondo (JPN) and Taiki Nakamura (JPN) delivered the first, but not last, All Japanese gold medal contest of the session. It was dynamic, fast and explosive, both men finding clever ways to unbalance the other. They attacked and worked hard in both tachi-waza and ne-waza but the win didn’t come until golden score was well under way. Kondo struck with an unbelievably aerial uchi-mata and when it landed, ippon was the only reward possible. Kondo had the win and the gold medal.

The first bronze medal contest featured Romain Valadier-Picard (FRA) and Harim Lee (KOR) and it was a tricky one for both. They headed deep into golden score, staying as close as any two judoka could be, remaining at 2 penalties apiece for quite some time. Eventually Valadier-Picard took a third to give Lee the win and the medal.

Ryuju Nagayama (JPN) and Luka Mkheidze (FRA) fought for the second bronze medal and the chance to complete the podium line-up. Nagayama, even as a world champion, should not have found it easy against double Olympic medallist Mkheidze but in only 40 seconds he applied a devastating shime-waza and the frenchman had no option but to too submit. Nagayama had his medal. Both French judoka had to accept 5th place this time.