Tato Grigalashvili, in white, beat Matthias Casse in a rematch of last year's final ©Getty Images

Georgia's Tato Grigalashvili sparked jubilant scenes at the Humo Arena as he secured gold, while Megumi Horikawa extended Japan's lead atop the standings on the fourth day of the World Judo Championships in Tashkent.

Horikawa took a world title for the first time against Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist and Commonwealth Games champion Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard with a last-gasp reverse leg sweep in the women's under-63 kilograms final.

Time was about to run out and the tie looked to be heading to golden score, but the 26-year-old managed to wrap her leg around her opponent to send the Canadian crashing down for an ippon.

Horikawa was good value for the win after controlling most of the bout and despite several failed foot sweeps, Beauchemin-Pinard was unable to find a counter for the inevitable coup de grâce.

France's six-time national champion Manon Deketer took the first bronze medal of the day as an early waza-ari, also from a leg sweep, saw her get the better of Poland's Angelika Szymanska.

Deketer took the lead inside the first minute and then executed a perfect defensive strategy to hold off her opponent's advances and see out the remainder of the duel.

Bárbara Timo made up the podium in the last women's match of the session as she went head-to-head with Romanian 20-year-old Florentina Ivănescu.

Timo clinched the second world medal of her career, adding to a silver from Tokyo 2019, after an almost exact replica of Deketer's win.

Megumi Horikawa, in white, secured the first World Judo Championships gold medal of her career today in Tashkent ©Getty Images
Megumi Horikawa, in white, secured the first World Judo Championships gold medal of her career today in Tashkent ©Getty Images

She claimed a swift nage-waza to take the opening point before playing safe and minimising Ivănescu's chances of equalising by not being drawn into dangerous positions.

In a rematch of last year's final, Grigalashvili exacted revenge on Belgium's defending champion Matthias Casse in the men's under-81kg decider.

It was the first gold-medal match of the World Championships that did not feature a Japanese judoka.

Chanting of the Georgian's name could be heard from the crowd as the bout went into golden score, before he unleashed a thundering koshi guruma hip wheel to slam an exhausted Casse into the tatami.

The ippon brought the crowd to their feet as the stadium erupted with noise.

Prior to the final, Austrian Shamil Borchashvili won bronze with a double waza-ari win over Saeid Mollaei of Azerbaijan while Tokyo 2020 gold medallist Takanori Nagase of Japan beat compatriot Sotaro Fujiwara to the podium after the latter was given a hansoku-make for three minor infringements.

Action is set to continue tomorrow with the women's under-70kg and men's under-90kg competitions.