Middleweight (≤86 kilograms), Men

After winning a gold medal at half-middleweight in 1988, and a bronze in the same class at the 1989 Worlds, Poland’s Waldemar Legień had moved up to the middleweight division, winning a bronze medal at the 1991 World Championships. But the favorite in the class was Japan’s Hirotaka Okada, World Champion in 1987 at half-middleweight and in 1991 at middleweight. He had also won the 1990 Asian Games, was a five-time champion in the All-Japan Championships, and twice won at the Kodokan Cup. In the A pool semi-final, Okada went to the final, where he faced Canada’s Nicolas Gill. Gill was not yet well-known, but would later win multiple international medals. And in Barcelona he shocked the judo world by upsetting Okada with waza-ari. But Legień defeated Gill in the pool final, and went on to win his second Olympic gold medal, defeating France’s surprising Pascal Tayot in the final.