Georgian Tsirekidze wins men's 90kg judo Olympic gold. [Xinhua]

Trakli Tsirekidze of Georgia defeated Algerian Amar Benikhlef to take the men's 90kg judo gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old Tsirekidze had not given any flaw in his defence against Benikhlef in the final and scored a koka by a penalty to his opponent for being negative, which led to the gold medal.

Ranked world No. 1, the Georgian judoka proved his world champion title last year by giving a convincing performance throughout the competition. He managed two ippons and only surrendered one koka to his rivals.

In the five-minute showdown, Benikhlef nearly twisted the Georgian for a come-from-behind victory at the last a few seconds. However, the Algerian failed to make a historical gold medal for his country.

Nevertheless, Benikhlef who ranked 25th this year still achieved the best judo result at Olympic Games with the silver medal for African people, following a bronze medal gained by his compatriot Soraya Haddad in women's 52kg category.

The bronze medals went to Hesham Mesbah, another African judoka from Egypt. He ipponed Frenchmen Yves-Matthieu Dafreville.

Sergei Aschwanden of Switzerland also made an ippon victory over Ivan Pershin from Russia to receive the other bronze medal.

Olympic Games award two bronze medals respectively to the winners of competitions.

(Xinhua News Agency August 13, 2008)