Montral, 26 mars 2023 son dernier passage au Grand Chelem de Tbilissi, en 2021, Shady ElNahas avait dcroch la premire mdaille dor de sa carrire ce niveau. Dimanche, il a renou avec le podium en mettant la main sur une mdaille de bronze chez les moins de 100 kg dans la capitale gorgienne..
The Canadian was familiar with his last opponent, Kazakh Nurlykhan Sharkhan. The Canadian had recently trained with him and had taken note of his defensive style something that ElNahas factored into his strategy so he could use it to his own advantage.
“He got penalties because he didn’t want to engage with me – that was part of the game plan,” ElNahas acknowledged.
Just as he was hoping, a little after two minutes had passed, the official penalized Sharkhan for a third time which ended the bout, good for earning the Ontario native the third step of the podium.
“If I had had the chance to throw him off, I would have, but I knew it was going to be tough because of his defense,” added EINahas, who now has nine Grand Slam medals to his credit.
Earlier Sunday, he won his first two bouts when he defeated Croatia’s Zlatko Kumric and France’s Alexandre Iddir by ippon to advance to the semi-finals. ElNahas then faced Gonchigsuren Batkhuyag of Mongolia – Batkhuyag scored two waza-aris early in the match and advanced to the final.
“My first two fights went perfectly, but the semi-final it was very disappointing. The guy just wanted to wait to counter me and he got to me. I think it was a fight I could have won,” ElNahas analyzed in hindsight.
If he had reached the grand final, the Canadian would have faced the Georgian Illia Sulamanidze, the same opponent he defeated at this very same Grand Slam in 2021.
“It would have been cool to do that again. In Paris, I also lost in the semifinals, so I’m going to have to figure out how to not overthink it, win, and get through to the final,” sagely noted the Canadian.
Sulamanidze won gold against Batkhuyag in the grand final, and the other bronze went to Brazilian judoka Buzacarini.
In the Under 90kg category, Louis Krieber Gagnon finished the tournament with one win and one loss. The Quebecer started his tournament with a waza-ari win over Anarbek Ishenbaev of (Kyrgyzstan), but then lost to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Champion Lasha Bekauri of Georgia.
A short time later, Bekauri got the better of compatriot Luka Maisuradze in the grand final. Cubas Ivan Felipe Silva Morales and Japanese judoka Goki Tajima both earned bronze medals.