Daniel Natea continues winning in new Olympic cycle

World Judo Masters winner Daniel Natea of Romania won his first Grand Prix with a heavyweight ippon in the last contest of the Zagreb Grand Prix 2016 as he bided his time before launching former Ulaanbaatar Grand Prix silver medallist Sven Heinle of Germany for a spectacular ippon.

The men’s heavyweight final matched one of the biggest judoka in the category against one of the shortest and Natea, who had eye-catching black tape on all of his fingers and thumbs, exploded into an o-guruma as Heinle was floored with a minute left on the clock.

In the first semi-final Natea shaded former Glasgow European Open winner Benjamin Harmegnies (BEL) by the smallest margin of a yuko score to take his expected spot in the men’s heavyweight final. In the second semi-final Budapest Grand Prix winner Stanislav Bondarenko of the Ukraine fell to Heinle on shidos 2:1 in a scoreless contest.

The first bronze medal went to Bondarenko who dominated Sarajevo European Cup winner Vito Dragic (SLO). The Ukrainian opened his account with a soft uchi-mata for a yuko score and added a waza-ari from the same technique before holding down the Slovenian for 15 seconds with a kesa-gatame to win by waza-ari awasette-ippon. The second bronze medal went to a newcomer to the IJF medal podium as Harmegnies defeated 23-year-old Hamza Ouchani (FRA) in a one-sided contest. Harmegnies opened the scoring with a harai-makikomi on the edge of the mat for a waza-ari and turned in a ushiro-kesa-gatame hold for 15 seconds and a new personal best.