Kim Jonghoon gears up in 2025 with gold U90kg

The final for men U90kg in Paris saw 2023 world champion Luka Maisuradze (GEO) face a relative unknown for the gold medal. In this exciting and dynamic category Jonghoon Kim of Korea had a fantastic morning session eliminating the athlete in pole position, Rafael Macedo (BRA), Eniel Caroly (FRA) and Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou (FRA) en route.

Kim’s left seoi-otoshi caused Maisuradze some problems from the outset, as did his rate of attack. The Korean wanted distance, the Georgian wanted none, a complete clash of styles! They were a shido apiece with one minute to go but with 30 seconds to go the world champion found himself under pressure as a second shido came. From there the contest went into golden score. 
After 43 seconds of extra time, Kim moved in to pounce and he sprung under his opponent with a seoi-otoshi and rose up to ensure the score; it was ippon! Jonghoon Kim was 111th on the World Ranking List prior to Paris, having never won a grand slam medal before. That ranking is about to change!
The first bronze medal went to world champion Goki Tajima (JPN) in just over a minute. He threw Estonia’s Kaljulaid for ippon with a combination that began with a small uchi-mata action but finished with a huge osoto-gari. 
The second bronze medal went to Alexis Mathieu directly as his teammate and opponent, Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou was unable to compete.

So little-known Kim Jonghoon of South Korea shocked the judo world by beating Luka Maisuradze of Georgia in -90kg division at the 2025 Paris Grand Slam. In doing so, he improved his rankings from a lowly 111th place to No. 39 in the world. That's a massive jump of 72 places. His best IJF result before this was a bronze medal (at -81kg) in the 2022 Portugal Grand Prix. In the 2022 World Championships, he lost his first match.