Ivan Nifontov shows us too late how good he is

World number 19 Maresch and world number 20 Nifontov were the first and second seeds respectively and both came through the preliminaries unscathed to book a fascinating final. The head-to-head series was locked at 1-1 coming into the gold medal match with their previous meetings coming in 2008 and 2012. Former world, European and Grand Slam winner Nifontov marked his first IJF outing of 2016 with the top prize as he rolled over his German rival for a waza-ari and held down the top seed for 15 seconds with a kesa-gatame to win by wazari-awasette-ippon.

The first bronze medal was clinched by two-time Grand Slam silver medallist Ungvari Attila (HUN) who gave the hosts the perfect start to the final block by defeating Sarajevo European Cup winner Bojan Dosen (SRB). Dosen was fighting for a Grand Prix medal for the first time and was unsuccessful in his first medal contest as Ungvari forced his opponent to submit with a forceful piece of shime-waza. The second bronze medal was won by former Asian Championships silver medallist Ebi Yasuhiro (JPN) who beautifully threw 20-year-old Junior European Championships silver medallist Nicon Zaborosciuc (MDA) with an ippon seoi-nage for the maximum score at exactly the halfway point having already led by a waza-ari.

Short profile Ivan Nifontov

Ivan Nifontov is the 2009 World and European Champion and 2012 bronze Medallist of the Olympic Games U81kg. He won world bronze in 2014 and silver at the European Games 2015. He was born in Kazakhstan but moved a lot as a child. In Budapest he finally won his first Grand Prix in his career.