As the focus shifted to the middleweight categories inside the FGB Arena, Nifontov proved himself among the best in the world once again as he defeated Canada's World Championship silver medallist Antoine Valois-Fortier in the men's under 81 kilogram weight division.

It took just a minute for the 2009 world champion and 2014 world bronze medallist to seal the deal in the final after a sumi-gaeshi for waza-ari led to an immediate immobilisation for ippon.

It was a closer contest in the opening bronze medal encounter where Sergiu Toma secured a first medal of the Championships for the hosts with a victory over the winner of the Tashkent Grand Prix, Roman Moustopoulos of Greece.

An early o-uchi-gari turned uchi-mata for waza-ari gave Belarus' Aliaksandr Stsiashenka the upper hand in the second bronze medal match and, despite a fight back from France's Alain Schmitt, the Belarusian held on to seal the final spot on the medal podium.

Ivan Nifontov saw off competition from Antoine Valois-Fortier to take gold in the men's under 81kg division at the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi ©IJF



Alongside Nifontov, the International Judo Federation named Slovenia's World Championship bronze medallist Tina Trstenjak as the athlete of the day as she claimed gold in the women's under 63kg category.

The world number five took just two minutes to see off Dutch top seed Anicka Van Emden with a sumi-gaeshi for waza-ari followed by an immobilisation for ippon giving her the victory.

It was another quick encounter in the opening bronze medal affair as Poland's Agata Ozdoba struck Ecuador's Estefania Garcia with an armlock inside a minute to record an ippon and the victory.

The ippons continued to flow in the second bronzed medal playoff where Germany's world number eight Martyna Trajdos threw her opponent Kathrin Unterwurzacher of Austria with a upper-body movement for the win.

Germany's Laura Vargas Koch proved why she is still one of the best judoka in the world with victory over Austria's Bernadette Graf ©IJF



It was business as usual for Germany's European silver medallist Laura Vargas Koch in the women's under 70kg category as she helped herself to gold in her matchup with Austria's Bernadette Graf.

Just two yuko scores separated the judoka in this final as Koch added to her World Championships bronze medal, earned in Chelyabinsk in August.

It was an even closer affair in the first bronze medal final between Mongolia's Naranjargal Tsend Ayush and Canada's Kelita Zupancic with a single shido penalty handing the Canadian the win.

The second bronze medal final looked to be going the way of shido penalties before Katarzyna Klys of Poland landed a harai-makikomi for waz-ari, immediately followed in ne-waza for ippon against Morocco's Assmaa Niang.

The final of the men's under 73kg competition ended in somewhat of an anti-climax after Russia's Musa Mogushkov failed to recover from an injury picked up in the semi-final, leading to a walkover for Dex Elmont of The Netherlands.

Bronze medals in this division were secured by Slovenia's Rok Draksic and Azerbaijan's Rustam Orujov following wins over America's Nicholas Delpopolo and North Korea's Hong Kuk Hyon.

Watch the latest action on Judo TV here.

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