“Sometimes we have lower expectations after big events like the Olympics and we think juniors will not be able to perform at a high level but today we saw really good performances, especially in the last final, -66kg, with the German and the Russian, who had been striking all the senses during the day, letting us know it would be a good final. They were both attacking in every contest, scoring and then we had that big ippon in the final. It was beautiful and exciting and we saw this all day long.
There weren’t many golden scores. We saw massive ippon judo from good quality players. Okay, so the Japanese are not here but for the ones who are here, maybe that is not such a bad thing. Nobody can question the quality of what we saw today. Italy won a gold medal and nothing can be better than that when you host a tournament. Then they added to it with a silver and a bronze, all on the opening day. We also had a French gold medal and a Georgian gold medal. It was a nice spread and a good judo day for me.
If I had to pick one woman and one man who stood out, then I could. She was not the most spectacular but every time she was challenged on something Chloé Devictor had the answer. She took the gold medal in the –52kg category and who can turn down the winner of a weight?
I also pick Naguchev at –66kg because if we look at his journey we will see that he scored in every contest and he won the gold with a superb ippon in the final."