Final: Balabay Aghayev (AVE) vs Loiq Kudbudinov (TJK)

World number three Balabay Aghayev was in outstanding form from his first contest of the day. Competing against a dynamic adversary could have been off-putting but Aghayev was ready for anything, more than prepared. It took him just over a minute to earn the ‘ippon’ call needed to take the gold, throwing Kudbudinov with a seoi-otoshi at the speed of light!

After the final, Balabay Aghayev said, “This gold medal, well, I still can't quite believe it. I worked very hard for this and I had a feeling I could achieve a good result. Of course, there were some mistakes that we will work on to get even better but today I am very happy.”

Bronze medal contest: Yeldos Smetov (KAZ( vs Talgat Orynbassar (KAZ)

Twenty-one-year old Talgat Orynbassar had a mountain to climb facing Olympic champion, senpai and countryman Yeldos Smetov, 13 years his senior, but he let nothing faze him and worked for the win as he would against anyone.

Orynbassar scored a waza-ari with a counter halfway through the contest, lighting a fire under Smetov who scored a yuko in the next exchange. That was last score of the four minutes and so Orynbassar could be proud of doing the seemingly impossible. Smetov, always gracious in defeat, hugged his teammate before leaving the tatami.

Bronze medal contest: Izhak Ashpiz (ISR) vs Kamoliddin Bakhtiyorov (UZB)

An action-packed medal contest ensued, full of big attacks and careful gripping. Neither was able to score in the early part of the fight but each infringed the rules in small ways meaning that at full time there were two penalties on each side of the scoreboard.

As the golden score period began, Kamoliddin Bakhtiyorov hooked on to Ashpiz’s leg with a huge ko-soto-gake to score ippon and claim the last medal of the -60 kg category.