PARIS, Aug 26: Favourites Ilias Iliadis of Greece and Japan’s Takashi Ono remained on course for a dream final at the World Judo Championships at the Palais Omnisport de Bercy here on Friday.

Reigning champion Iliadis started slowly in the defence of his under-90kg title before squeezing past Poland’s Robert Krawczyk by a penalty.

He picked things up in the next round against Algeria’s Lyes Bouyakoub whom he pinned for victory.

And that was when he really started to find his rhythm as he threw Moldova’s Ivan Remarenco with a stunning standing shoulder throw (ippon-seoi-nage) and then dumped Brazil’s Hugo Pessanha with a counter-sweep (kosoto-gake).

In the afternoon’s semi-finals he will meet Russian Kiril Denisov who shocked 2009 world champion Lee Kyu-Won of South Korea in the quarter-finals.

Lee appeared to be dominating until Denisov caught him with kosoto-gake and put him flat on his back.

Incredulous, Lee took an age to get back onto his feet, seemingly running over in his mind how he’d thrown away the bout.

In the quarter-final he took advantage of Ukrainian Valentyn Grekov’s desperation when chasing the fight to whip underneath him and flip him over with a shoulder throw (seoi-nage).

World number three Daiki Nishiyama of Japan was far from impressive against Georgia’s Varlam Liparteliani before finding progress against Lithuania’s Karolis Bauza somewhat easier.

World champion Lucie Decosse was in imperious form at under-70kg as she pinned Angola’s Antonia Moreira and then threw Linda Bolder of the Netherlands with an inner thigh technique (uchi-mata).

Most striking, though, was her ouchi-gari after just 25 seconds of her last 16 clash to dispatch Russia’s Anastasia Gubadova before North Korea’s Sol Kyong succumbed to the same technique.

Japan still lead the medals table with five gold from eight categories while France, South Korea and Uzbekistan have one each.—AFP