They say anything can happen in judo, and it's sometimes true! Dayyan Boulemtafes, a 19-year-old French player who had lost in the first round of the 2025 Lima World Junior Championships, found himself to be Hidayat Heydarov's first opponent in the 2025 Lima Grand Prix.
Heydarov, of course, was the 2024 European, World and Olympic Champion. But that didn't faze the young Frenchman, who went on to throw Heydarov with sumi-gaeshi for ippon. This surely must have been the upset of the tournament.
Blog posts
Distria Krasniqi (KOS) was the queen of the -52's in Zagreb. She won all her matches by ippon, There was no one even close to her.
Team USA got a total of 3 golds, 9 silvers and 5 bronzes. The three gold medalists were Christoper Velazco at -60kg, Daniel Liubimovski at -100kg and Mariah Holguin at -57kg.
An overview of the winners from Day 3 of the Zagreb Grand Prix, including the performance of American players.