-81kg: The Home Team Dominate in Baku

Of the three, 2 made it right the way through a tough draw to meet in the final. From Saeid Mollaei, world champion and Olympic medallist, Zelim Tckaev with no medals at either but 4 grand slam medals, and 20 year old Omar Rajabli who is at 115th place on the senior World Ranking List and has a bronze medal from the 2023 European Championships Juniors on his record, which two do you think came through?

Gauthier-Drapeau (CAN) was the number one seed in Baku but he lost to unseeded Georgian Dvalashvili in round two, who then in turn lost to Rajabli (AZE) for a place in the quarter-final. Rajabli went on the win that contest too, seeing off Gramkow (GER) with a makikomi at just over a minute into golden score. Rajabli then had Olympic medallist Shamil Borchasvili to contend with in his semi-final and not meaning to give away part of the ending but Rajabli won that too!

In pool C, number 2 seed Mollaei began well against Hebib (BIH) but against Gerbekov (BRN) he couldn’t keep the momentum. Thirty seconds into golden score Askerbii Gerbekov threw Mollaei with a seoi-otoshi for waza-ari, eliminating the host’s Olympic medallist from the group.

Gerbekov continued to have an outstanding day, reaching the semi-final with great determination. There though, he met Tckaev and he had been on explosive form from the first round. As number 3 seed it wasn’t unexpected but it was impressive! Against Gerbekov he employed a sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi first and then took a second waza-ari with a sumi-gaeshi. This set up an all-Azeri final.

The first bronze was set to be won by either Gramkow (GER) or Gerbekov (BRN). Both have had a great day but ultimately the throwing ability of Gerbekov was on point today and with an unstoppable ko-soto-gake he ploughed Gramkow into the mat for bronze.

De Wit (NED), beaten by Gerbekov in the quarter-final, faced Shamil Borchashvili (AUT) for the second bronze medal. It was the former who took the windespite great positivity from both fighters. He scored ippon with a huge, full body o-uchi-gari that left Borchashvili in 5th place.

Inside the last minute of what had been a real yo-yo of a final, with both Azeri judoka giving everything for the gold medal, it was Tckaev who was finally able to score, entering with an uchi-mata that Rajabli could not escape from.