Olympic gold medalist Masato Uchishiba suffered a shock upset in the men's under-66kg final on Thursday, narrowly beaten by Russian minnow Alim Gadanov to miss the title on the opening day of the 2007 Beijing Judo Open.

The 29-year-old blamed a tactic misplay and a low mood of himself for the defeat in the "Good Luck Beijing" Olympic test event final.

"I think there are two main reasons for me to lose the final," he told media at a post-match press conference. "First of all, I did not use some difficult techniques to vie for a title. And secondly, I just played three matches before entering the final and did not tune myself up to the finest condition."

On the women's part, Europe's promising judoka Caroline Lantoine of France claimed the first gold medal of the tournament, as the former European junior champion took only 39 seconds to beat this year's Pan American Games silver medalist Erika Miranda of Brazil with an ippon at the final of women's 52kg category earlier.

Xiao Jun, last year's Chinese national judo championships winner of the women's 48kg category, settled for a bronze medal after choking her opponent from Mongolian Bundmaa Munkhbaatar to an ippon win, while her compatriot Li Hongye missed her chance in the other third-place match and lost to Russian Natalia Kuzyutina with a koka against a waza-ari and a yuko.

In the men's 66kg final, Uchishiba, who won the Olympic gold medal three years ago in the same category in Athens, was edged on a yuko after the match went full time of five minutes.

"It's a pity for me not having won the gold medal. I hope next year I could sit here as an Olympic champion and answer your questions with a gold medal," he said.

"Later I'll back to Japan, which's holding many internal trials and competitions ahead of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and I'll try to improve my skills and tactics," added the Japanese.

His rival from Russia, who's barely known on the world stage of judo before winning the Super World Cup in Rotterdam in September, made the final with an even tighter victory over Brazil's Leandro Cunha, with a koka in the Group A final earlier in the evening.

The bronze medals went to Chinese Liu Changchun, who lost to Uchishiba in Group B final, and the other group's repechage winner Jordan Amoros from France, both winning the third-place match with an ippon.

(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2007)