Pirelli beats Fonseca for 18th win in a row

Four minutes without a score, then golden score, then a third shido against Jorge Fonseca, and Gennaro Pirelli had won the U100kg final of the Grand Slam in Budapest without throwing anyone. It was his eighteenth consecutive win and his third title of 2026 after the European Championships in Podgorica in April and the Grand Slam in Ulaanbaatar in June, and it came three weeks before the World Championships in Baku, where the 26 year old from Naples arrives as world number two and the man in form.

The final was tight because of who was on the other side. Fonseca, 33, two time world champion in Tokyo in 2019 and in this city in 2021 and Olympic bronze medallist in Tokyo, started unseeded and ranked far below the position he once held, and fought his way to the final through Piotr Kuczera of Poland, Leonardo Goncalves of Brazil, the current world number one, Peter Kenderesi of Hungary to take Pool A and Niiaz Bilalov of Russia in the semi final. A first shido early, a second for a false attack and a third in golden score did for him; nobody threw him all day.

Grip fight and a switch from right to left

Pirelli’s route ran through Kacper Szczurowski of Poland, Shady El Nahas of Canada, Yuta Kasai of Japan in the quarter final and Iosif Simin of Israel in the semi. His own account of the day was precise. “I focused on the grip fight and changing my attack strategy from right to left, which paid off well,” he said, and on what it means: “I felt great today, which gives me the exact motivation I need as I prepare for the Baku World Championships.” He added that “winning gold at the Worlds has been my dream for a long time,” then, as a superstitious Neapolitan, moved the conversation on to being back in the gym on Tuesday.

Bilalov’s uchi-mata and a first Tour medal for Eich

Bilalov, beaten by Fonseca in the semi final, took bronze against Boris Georgiev of Bulgaria while carrying two penalties, stringing o-uchi-gari into uchi-mata and harai-goshi before a second uchi-mata landed for ippon. Daniel Eich of Switzerland had lost his pool final to Simin, came back through the repechage and beat the Israeli for the other bronze with an early yuko and a right sided uchi-mata for waza-ari. It was his first World Judo Tour medal, two weeks after he had missed the podium at his home Grand Slam in Lausanne. Three tournaments, eighteen contests, no defeats: for Pirelli the only question Budapest left open was whether a run like that survives Baku.

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