Belgian Sami Chouchi put on a superb display to win under-81 kilogram gold at the International Judo (IJF) Grand Slam in Tbilisi as attention turned to the action after a bout of COVID-19 breakthroughs at the event.
Chouchi defeated Shamil Borchashvili’s stunning final to grab his second IJF World Tour title.
The Belgian European silver medalist had lived in fear early in his semi-final against Tato Grigalashvili as the Georgian ippon was reduced to waza-ari on video review.
Chouchi recovered and captured the European and World Masters champion with a surprise by shime-waza to win.
Borchashvili had also caused upheaval in his semi-final after overtaking the Canadian world and Olympic winner Antoine Valois-Fortier of Canada.
Murad Fatiyev of Azerbaijan and Grigalashvili had to settle for the bronze medals in the region.
Tsend-Ochiryn Tsogtbaatar of Mongolia showed the second consecutive Grand Slam gold in the under-73kg category.
Tsogtbaatar, who reached the Georgian capital after reaching the podium in Tashkent earlier this month, defeated Canadian Arthur Margelidon in the final to continue his elegant run. of recent form.
The two available bronze medals were claimed by Georgian judoka, Aleko Mamiashvili and Lasha Shavdatuashvili.
Maria Portela of Brazil won under-70kg women’s honors to win the 10th Grand Slam medal of her career.
Portela, winner of the double Pan American Games award, overcame the challenge posed by Russia’s Madina Taimazova, who was a finalist at the World Masters in Doha.
Gulnoza Matniyazova Uzbekistan and Gabriella Willems of Belgium received the bronze medals.
Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard justified her status as a pre-event favorite in women under-63kg by bidding for gold, which confirmed the start of a successful day for her country.
Beauchemin-Pinard ousted Yang Junxia in China, who had not appeared on an international podium since her 2019 bronze medal at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, in the final to win the title.
Geke van der Berg of Holland and Daria Davydova of Russia made enough for bronze.
Germany and France both withdrew from the Grand Slam due to COVID-19 concerns and there have been several advanced coronavirus tests during the incident in the Georgian capital.
Action is due to end tomorrow.