Canadian judoka Kyle Reyes topped the podium in the men's under-100 kilogram division at the Grand Slam event in Abu Dhabi on Sunday for the first Grand Slam gold medal of his career.
The 29-year-old from Toronto won all five of his matches, capping off his big weekend with a win over Spain's Nikoloz Sherazadishvili in the final.
He opened the tournament by defeating Columbia's Franciso Balanta by ippon in the second round after a first-round bye. Reyes followed it up with wins over Otabek Turaboev of Uzbekistan and Nurlykhan Sharkhan of Kazakhstan to reach the semifinals, where he defeated Olympic silver medallist Asley González of Romania by waza-ari.
In the final, Sherazadishvili tried to impose his uchi-mata and the Canadian tried to counteract it. The Spaniard was disqualified on his last attempt after the referees deemed him guilty of diving.