Takayama maintains 100% medal-winning record on IJF World Judo Tour

Japanese Takayama Rika maintained her 100% medal-winning record on the IJF World Judo Tour as she won her first Grand Prix gold medal on Sunday. World number 14 Takayama who was Tyumen Grand Slam winner, squared off against Zhang Kaili, also from China, who was contesting her first IJF World Judo Tour final and the 24-year-old ko-uchi-gari expert, who finished seventh at the Zagreb Grand Prix 2014, was second best throughout.

The young Japanese fighter wrapped up her opponent on the ground in osaekomi which started with a mune-gatame before moving into a yoko-shiho-gatame and just for good measure the -78kg starlet had a ude-garami on the left arm of her Chinese foe.

In the first semi-final Takayama dismissed Li Yang (CHN) with a quick workout as she threw for waza-ari and then held down the local fighter with a kuzure-kesa-gatame for 15 seconds to book a place in the final. In the second semi-final 19-year-old Ma Zhenzhao (CHN) lost out to teammate Zhang Kaili (CHN) by the maximum score to drop into the bronze medal contest instead of the gold medal contest on her senior debut.

The first bronze medal was won by Ma against 19-year-old Tian Miao (CHN) by a yuko in clash between two young Chinese talents. A makikomi attack from Ma was enough for a yuko as the hosts further inflated their medal haul on the final day. The second bronze medal contest was won by former Almaty Grand Prix winner Anastasiya Dmitrieva (RUS) who beat LI. Dmitrieva moved ahead 2-1 in their head-to-head series as she won their third contest on shidos 1:3.