Cyrille Maret inspired by French crowd
French Cyrille Maret is always inspired by the crowd in Paris. The European Games bronze medallist put his failure to win a World Championships medal behind him in the best possible fashion as he won Grand Slam gold in his homeland. Warsaw European Open silver medallist Rafael Buzacarini (BRA) was caught with 45 seconds left in the contest by an osoto-otoshi for yuko and Maret, who finished fifth in Astana, successfully retained his Paris title from 2014.
In the first semi-final Buzacarini was successful against Elmar Gasimov of Azerbaijan by ippon while in the second semi-final former Czech world champion Lukas Krpalek lost out to Maret by the maximum score.
The first bronze medal was won by European Games silver medallist Krpalek, who was fifth at the Worlds in August, as he held down Tashkent Grand Prix silver medallist Zlatko Kumric of Croatia with a yoko-shiho-gatame for 15 seconds and a matching-winning second waza-ari. The second bronze medal was captured by Glasgow European Open winner Michael Korrel who convincingly defeated Gasimov by ippon after leading by a waza-ari. The two youngest medal winners this weekend in Paris are Korrel (21) and De Wit (U81, 19yrs).
Result | City | Date |
---|---|---|
2 | Paris | 30 Jul |
1 | Abu Dhabi | 21 May |
1 | Zagreb | 26 Apr |
3 | Belgrade | 2023 |
2 | Montpellier | 2023 |