It remained to know who Fukuda's opponent would be and finally it was the world number 4, Eran Fiks (ISR), who took advantage of the situation and reached the final.
What a final! Of course it was almost written in advance that no-one could defeat the Japanese today as already three categories were won by Japan but Eran Fiks wanted to be the one, the first one, the one on top and yes he did everything and was so close to stealing the gold medal.
Actually, it wouldn’t have been a steal because he really produced amazing judo against Fukuda and even scored a waza-ari with a seoi-nage that was very close to ippon. In judo, though, a contest ends when ippon is called and in the end, it was Fukuda who cleverly avoided Fiks’ further attacks, to apply a shime-waza for ippon.
Congratulations to both judoka. A great match is when you have two great competitors and today we had them. The fourth gold medal was for Japan.
In the first contest for a bronze medal, Zhanarys Rakhmetkali (KAZ) and Viljar Lipard (EST) faced each other. The latter had a really good day, producing some powerful judo throughout, but this last contest was a little too much for him. Totally dominated by Zhanarys Rakhmetkali, he was penalised three times and the bronze medal was for Kazakhstan.
Japan, with Keita Hadano (JPN), had another chance of a medal. For this he had to face Tengo Zirakashvili (GEO). After a few seconds, Zirakashvili could breathe again when he was thrown for ippon with a fast ippon-seoi-nage but the score was corrected to waza-ari. Tengo Zirakashvili could never catch Hadano's pace and had to bow out conceding the bronze medal to Japan and Keita Hadano.
Final (-66 kg)
Bronze Medal Fights (-66 kg)
Final Results (-66 kg)
