Prior to today, none of last year's champions had managed to replicate their performances in Kazakhstan’s capital city, but Riner had no trouble in the early rounds, winning his opening two bouts with ippons to send a statement to his potential rivals.

The Frenchman booked his place in the gold medal bout by ending his contest with South Korea’s Sung-Min Kim early, having achieved another ippon.

In a repeat of the last year’s Championships in Russian city Chelyabinsk, he met Japan’s Ryu Shichinohe for gold, and it ended with the same result as Riner scored with a waza-ari and a yuko to add to his ever-growing list of titles.

While Riner was toasting another success, Ukraine’s Iakiv Khammo and Georgia's Adam Okruashvili were celebrating their first World Championship medals.

Khammo defeated Kim with an ippon while a waza-ari saw Okruashvili overcome Germany’s Andre Breitbarth in the second bronze medal bout.

Even though they had to to settle for silver in the over 100kg division, Japan’s stunning World Championships continued in the other divisions.

Ryunosuke Haga earned their sixth gold in Astana, winning the under 100kg division in impressive style.

His quest to claim a first title looked in doubt in the quarter-final stage, facing a tricky encounter with Germany’s Dmitri Peters with shido penalties the only way to separate them.

Haga built on that triumph by defeating France's Cyrille Maret by a yuko in the semi-final, setting upa gold medal bout with Germany’s Karl-Richard Frey, who had beaten the defending champion Lukas Krpalek of Czech Republic with an ippon in his last four tie.

The German had finished with a bronze in 2014 and, although he upgraded that medal here, it was not be the gold he was hoping for as Haga earned a shido penalty triumph with Frey having earned two to his one.

Frey’s team mate Dmitri Peters was eventually awarded an ippon after his throw of Krpalek had initially been deemed as a waza-ari, to take the first bronze in the division and was joined by Belgium’s Toma Nikiforov as he beat Maret with an ippon.

China entered the last day of the individual events still in search of their first medal of the Championships.

They were assured of at least a silver medal in the women’s over 78kg event, however,  after Yu Song and Sisi Ma won Pools A and B respectively to set up an all-Chinese semi-final.

World number one Song progressed to the final after she earned a yuko in the final minute of the encounter.

Japan's Megumi Tachimoto beat Russia's Ksenia Chibisova by the same margin in the other semi-final.

There proved to be very little between the two women in  the final but Song emerged the winner, avoiding receiving any shido penalties, while her opponent got two.

The 2014 champion Idalys Ortiz of Colombia, beaten by Tachimoto in the quarter-final, came through her repecharge match before salvaging a bronze medal from her tournament, beating Ma with an ippon.

Japan’s medal count also grew with Kanae Yamabe scoring with a yuko and then an ippon to beat Chibisova to bronze.

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