Ilias Iliadis back, Teddy Riner skips Tokyo

Last but not least, the real fireworks for the end of the year for all judo fans, Grand Slam Tokyo. The World wide judo brand tournament is home and will kick off tomorrow in Tokyo dome hall. This year's Tokyo edition will be special as it's 50th anniversary of judo at the Olympics, and after 50 years JUDO IS HOME.

Ilias Iliadis will this year take Grand Slam more seriously than last year, as he competed U100kg category at the previous edition. This year U90kg, 2nd seeded will not give his points away just like this. 36 athletes such as Liparteliani, Iddir, Gviniashvili will try to stop powerhouse from Olympia.

In general we can say that this year's edition is much more serious than last year, some categories look like the World Championships.

We are used to the fact that Teddy Riner choses only a few tournaments during the year. He surprised by showing up on the mat in Jeju last week, lot of them were hooked up on bait to see Riner fight in Tokyo dome as well.

Charline van Snick will have the biggest challenge after a big break after Rio. She already collected some important points this year at the Grand Prix Tashkent gold and in Zagreb bronze. Van Snick is in pool A with Olympic Champion Sarah Menezes (BRA), but before that she will have Alesya Kuznetsova of Russia.

Under 57kg division will be opened by Kaori Matsumoto, current Olympic Champion will have in first round Cynthia Rahming from Bahamas, nice warmup for the match against Filzmoser (AUT)

The men's category U73kg is a huge clash between more than two hands full of World and Olympic medallists. Sit on the front seat to watch the first match: The World's number one Dex Elmont against the 2013 World Champion Shohei Ono.