Leonardo Goncalves impressed during the day and was able to reward himself with a gold medal U100kg after his final against Germany’s Louis Mai who also had an incredible day in Linz. In the absence of the tenors of the category, a hecatomb could be expected among the top seeds, which made the competition particularly exciting and lively.
Sometimes a contest begins on a false rhythm. It takes a bit of time for the athletes to evaluate the situation. This was obviously not the case with this final. Both judoka immediately started to attack in all directions, entertaining the public. As they both engaged on a sideways trajectory, Goncalves turned his back to launch a quick harai-goshi that became an uchi-mata, leaving Mai armless. It was ippon for Goncalves and also a gold medal.
Louis Mai , pointing to a distant 118th place in the world, had an impressive day with good victories and motivating Grand Prix silver.
The first match for a bronze medal was between Mathias Madsen (DEN) and Zsombor Veg (HUN). It didn’t take too much time for Madsen to score two beautiful waza-ari with makikomi techniques that were both ideally executed and with perfect rotation, with no risk of the head dive.
Mert Sismanlar (TUR) and Rhys Thompson (GBR) battled to complete the podium. Once again we did not have to wait too long since 50 seconds were enough for Mert Sismanlar to score a beautiful ippon with a classic well driven left-handed o-uchi-gari.
Source : Judo Inside
