Seven categories were decided including the women's -70 kilograms, -78kg and +78kg while in the men's the -81kg, -90kg, -100kg and +100kg titles were up for grabs.

Austria's European Championship bronze medallist Bernadette Graf was the first to claim gold by overcoming Japan's Sofia European Open winner Arai Chizuru in the women's -70kg final.

Top seed Laura Vargas Koch of Germany could only manage a bronze medal and she was joined by the Netherland's Linda Bolder.

In the -78kg category world number two Abigel Joo of Hungary defeated rival Mayra Aguiar to secure her first ever win over the Brazilian Olmypic bronze medallist after four attempts.

Great Britain and the Netherland's shared the bronze medals in the form of Olympic silver medallist Gemma Gibbons and Marhinde Verkerk.

Maria Suelen Altheman prevailed in the +78kg category as the World Judo Masters silver medallist overcame Japan's Yamabe Kanae, with Briton Sarah Adlington and Jasmin Kuelbs of Germany taking the bronze medals.


In the men's -81kg class, Germany's Sven Maresch won his second Moscow Grand Slam title in three years with victory over Samsun Grand Prix silver medallist Vitalii Dudchyk of the Ukraine, who incurred four penalties for passivity and lost out.

The bronze medals went to Russians Ivan Vorobev and Stanislav Semenov.

However, the home crowd were eventually able to cheer a gold medal victory as Miami Grand Prix silver medallist Grigorii Sulemin defeated Uzbekistan's Erkin Doniyorov by just one yuko.

Czech Alexandr Jurecka followed up his bronze in Baku last time out with another in Moscow and he was joined by Japan's Kato Hirotaka who also finished with bronze at the Paris Grand Slam earlier this year.

Defending Moscow -100kg champion Ramziddin Sayidov of Uzbekistan could not repeat his success of 12 months ago as he lost out to rising Iranian star Javad Mahjoub, who added a first Grand Slam win to his junior and senior Asian titles.


Brazil's Luciano Correa got the better of Maxim Rakov from Uzbekistan in a battle of former world champions to claim bronze while Dimitri Peters of Germany defeated Russia's Sergei Samoilovich in the other bronze medal match-up.

In the heaviest category of the event, the +100kg final was an all-German affair with top honours going to Bucharest European Open winner Robert Zimmermann as compatriot and Olympic bronze medallist Andreas Toelzer could not contest the final due to injury.

Tunisia's Faicel Jaballah overcame Japan's All Japan Championship bronze medallist Ishii Ryuta with Iurii Krakovetskii of Kyrgyzstan claiming the other bronze.

Judokas will now begin preparations for the 2013 IJF World Judo Championships in Rio de Janeiro, which is due to take place from August 26 until September 1.

Photos: © IJF media by Tamas Zahonyi

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