Surprising all Russian final U73kg in Kazan

Surprises all over in Kazan's U73kg weight category. The Olympic champion U66kg, Fabio Basile, very recognisable by his flamboyant style and his gold back number, fell during his second contest, after a mistake that dragged him on to his back. It was not the only surprise at day two in the Tatarstan Sports city.

Tohar Butbul (ISR) seemed well on his way to being an U73kg finalist, but he fell in the semi-final to young Makhmadbek Makhmadbekov (RUS), pointing to a small 134th place in the world and only 21 years old. The latter found in the final his teammate Ayub Khazhaliev (RUS), a few years his senior but hardly better classified on the circuit, since he is currently 114th in the world. More impressively, he used osaekomi, shimewaza and kansetsu-waza in achieving his newaza wins.

Knowing each other perfectly, nothing seemed to differentiate the two and so after four minutes made their way into golden score, where a sudden attack that was not prepared well enough by Khazhaliev. Makhmadbekov disappeared behind his back, throwing him with a massive counterattack for ippon. Both top spots for Russia.

For the first bronze medal, we found Vadzim Shoka (BLR), seventh in the last European Championships and Nugzari Tatalashvili (GEO), bronze in Tel Aviv this season. 36 seconds of golden score were necessary for Tatalashvili to score a beautiful ippon with o-soto-otoshi, leaving Shoka flat on his back.

It was for the second bronze medal that we saw two veterans of the circuit meet, with world medallist Victor Scvortov (UAE) and the silver medallist of the last European Championships, Tohar Butbul (ISR). It was definitely Victor Scvortov who showed more desire to win as he controlled the kumi-kata and was able to score a waza-ari with a ko-uchi-gari, a technique that the UAE athlete used throughout the match to put Butbul out of balance.