Despite beating reigning Olympic champion Kayla Harrison of the United States in the quarter-finals, Hamada went into her gold medal match against French second seed Audrey Tcheumeo as the underdog.

Tcheumeo, the 2011 world champion, started at a high pace, giving her Japanese opponent no opportunities to even put her hands on her judogi.

But Hamada remained unfazed and jumped on Tcheumeo’s collar during the first ground work to apply a shime-waza for an immediate ippon.

Harrison was able to take consolation from winning the first bronze medal fight at the expense of fellow former world champion Kyong Sol of North Korea, while Great Britain’s Gemma Gibbons, the London 2012 silver medallist, beat Russia’s Alena Kachorovskaya to the other.

Meanwhile in the men’s under 90kg final, 2013 world champion Asley Gonzalez of Cuba was downed by Nagasawa, whose previous best result on the international scene was a fifth-place finish at last year’s Tokyo Grand Slam.

Both athletes were quickly penalised for passivity before Gonzalez received a second penalty after blocking his opponent again.  

Only a few seconds remained when Nagasawa was once more penalised for the same mistake, moving the contest into golden score where the best attacks were delivered from both sides.

Nagasawa seemed to be more lively than his older opponent and took advantage of a mistake from Gonzalez to throw him for waza-ari with a tai-otoshi technique.

France’s Alexandre Iddir got the better of compatriot Axel Clerget in the first bronze medal match, after which Azerbaijan’s Ramin Gurbanov downed Russia’s Kirill Voprosov.

Elsewhere on day three, China's Song Yu and Sisi Ma squared off on home soil in the final of the women’s over 78kg category to determine who holds supremacy in the weight division. 

World number one and reigning world champion Yu established a slight advantage just before the halfway mark as Ma, the world number two, was penalised with a first shido.

And the difference of a penalty ultimately proved enough to give Yu victory, underlining the Qingdao-born fighter’s status as the woman to beat.

The first bronze medal contest saw Ukraine’s Svitlana Iaromka defeat Turkey’s Belkis Zehra Kaya, while South Korea’s Minjeong Kim overcame Lithuania’s Santa Pakenyte in the second.

As for the men’s under 100kg final, Kazakhstan’s Maxim Rakov met Tuvshinbayar Naidan, who is widely considered a national hero in his native Mongolia having helped bring peace to the country after winning Olympic gold at Beijing 2008.

Rakov, the 2009 world champion, was penalised for passivity after two minutes and again shortly after with Naidan always on the move.

With 20 seconds remaining before the final gong, it was the turn of Naidan to be penalised for passivity, but the shido difference ensured victory for the Mongolian in the end.

Both bronze medals went to Azerbaijanis as Elmar Gasimov and Elkhan Mammadov beat Germany’s Karl-Richard Frey and Ukraine’s Artem Bloshenko respectively.

All the focus in the men’s over 100kg category was on the eight-time world champion Teddy Riner, who maintained his undefeated record that stretches back as far as 2010.

In the final, the Frenchman was up against South Korea’s Sung-Min Kim, who after 45 seconds was penalised a first time for passivity and again 30 seconds later.

A third shido was given to Kim before Riner was able to apply a first sumi-gaeshi technique, and although he didn't score, it didn’t take long for a fourth penalty to be given to Kim, handing victory to Riner, who remains totally unchallenged.

Ukraine’s Oleksandr Gordiienko beat Kazakhstan’s Aituar Abdulov in the first bronze medal encounter, while Katsuma Ueda added to Japan’s impressive haul by defeating Germany’s Sven Heinle.

The final Grand Prix of the season is scheduled to take place in Jeju, South Korea from November 26 to 28.

To watch all the latest action and interviews on Judo TV, click here.



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