Montreal, February 25, 2018 – Zachary Burt was defeated by a young German opponent on Sunday in his first bout of the day in the -90 kg category during the Judo Grand Slam in Dusseldorf, Germany.

Despite being active during the whole fight, the Montreal resident, ranked 18^th in the world, couldn’t find the weak spot in Tim Schmidt’s defence, ranked 162^nd. The German athlete was able to score a waza-ari with less than a minute left in regulation time.

Having 37 seconds left to fill the gap, Burt attacked his 20-year-old rival, but the German judoka was able to hold on, and even scored again, this time by ippon.

Bronze medallist at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam in October, and 7^th in Tokyo in December, the judoka from Whitby, Ontario, will come back home without a ranking, with Schmidt being eliminated in the next round.

“I made the mistake of being too confident, and he got me by surprise in the end. My goal was to be on the podium today, so this result is disappointing,” said Burt, whose next chance to compete will be the Panamerican Championships, in April.

Russian Mikhail Igolnikov ended up winning the gold medal against Japanese Mashu Baker. Altanbagana Gantulga, from Mongolia, and Nikoloz Sherazadishvili, from Spain, won the bronze medals.

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Written by Sportcom (info@sportcom.qc.ca) for Judo Canada