It is a fact that the Japanese are not there, but that is their decision and it in no way detracts from the performance of the countries involved; on the contrary. After three days of competition, there were already no less than 20 countries with a medal. Peter Safrany of Hungary captured the gold medal after his final of the U90kg weight division against Dutchman Tigo Renes. Safrany became the seventh Hungarian Junior World Champion… and convincing.
Peter Safrany had already had the opportunity to show his counterattack capacities and once again in the final he scored twice with what looked like his tokui-waza or preferred technique, to win the title for Hungary. It must be said that the whole final block was exceptional, as only one match went to golden score and the whole sequence was not longer than one hour and ten minutes.
Peter Safrany said, “Today my ura-nage worked pretty well but I’m so tired, especially since the quarter-final. That contest was the toughest because the French guy was never tired.”
Following the success of Joanne Van Lieshout on day two of the Junior Worlds, the Netherlands placed another athlete in a position to win gold, with Tigo Renes. But he ended like 16 others with a silver medal at the Junior Worlds. Ten athletes including Van Lieshout won the world title. The Dutch actually secured a silver medal four events in a row, in 2017 in Zagreb, 2018 in Nassau, 2019 Marrakech and this year’s Olbia edition. A doubtful streak, but it proves the consistency of Dutch juniors that always delivers a finalist.
Russia was assured to have one more medal with both Adam Sangariev (RUS) and Egor Andoni (RUS) being qualified for the bronze medal contest. This was the first and only golden score of the final block of this third day. With athletes knowing one another so well, they could not find a simple opportunity to throw and therefore the winner was decided by the one with less penalties than the other. Bronze went to Adam Sangariev.
The French athletes all showed some really great judo throughout the preliminary rounds on day three but at the end of the day, only one athlete, Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou, was in a position to step on to the podium, against Alex Cret (ROU). It was a really pleasant match to watch both athletes offering to the public a lot of action and scores. Alex Cret scored first but his waza-ari was downgraded. Then the French competitor scored a first waza-ari with a rolling movement, followed shortly after by a low sode-tsuri-komi-goshi for ippon and the bronze medal for Maxime-Gael Ngayap Hambou.