Soichi Hashimoto rules at Grand Prix Montreal

Who else then Soichi Hashimoto won the gold medal at the Grand Prix of Montreal. The Japanese 2017 World Champion defeated Victor Scvortov who had nothing to tell in the final.

The U73kg category produced incredible matches throughout the preliminary rounds, to the delight of specialists and fans present at the Maurice Richard arena in Montreal. In the game of prognosis it was not hard to imagine that Hashimoto Soichi would be present in the final, which the Japanese did without forcing his talent, since he won his first three bouts by Ippon. Against him to play gold, a well-known athlete on the international circuit, since the representative of the United Arab Emirates, Victor Scvortov, world bronze medalist in 2014, eliminated in the semifinals the Canadian, Arthur Margelidon (CAN) to get a new chance to secure a medal at this level.

After one minute, both athletes were penalized with a shido for passivity. Hashimoto seemed to be totally in control of the match though and after having scored a first waza-ari on a counterattack he concluded on the floor with an arm-lock for Ippon.          

The first bronze medal match opposed Anthony Zingg (GER), holder of already three Grand Prix bronze medals and Arthur Margelidon (CAN), already present on the podium of the 2019 Hohhot Grand Prix. It is with a nice piece of ground work that Anthony Zingg concluded the match, scoring Ippon with a shime-waza technique. This is the fourth medal for the German won on the occasion of a Grand Prix.

The second bronze medal contest opposed Eduardo Barbosa (BRA), who's best place this season was a fifth place at the Ekaterinburg Grand Slam, and Antoine Bouchard (CAN), bronze medallist in Marrakech in 2019. To the delight of the Canadian public, Antoine Bouchard added one more medal to the list of medals won since the beginning of the competition by the Canadian squad, after a great work on the ground, which started with a sankaku-jime and ended with a victorious immobilization.