PARIS, Aug 25: Twenty-year-old world junior champion Loic Petrie lit up the third day of the Judo World Championships at the Palais Omnisport de Bercy on Thursday as he reached the under-81kg semi-finals.

The Frenchman produced a belligerent display of non-stop attacking judo to upset a number of fancied opponents.

In the third round he sneaked past former world champion Guillaume Elmont of the Netherlands and then defeated Georgian Avtandil Tchrikishvili with a half-point waza-ari score off a rear throw (ura-nage).

In the quarter-finals he came up against Azerbaijan's Elkhan Rajabli, who had just knocked out world number four Takahiro Nakai of Japan.

Rajabli scored a waza-ari with ura-nage but belying his tender years Petrie kept faith in his all-out assault and levelled things with a corner throw (sumi-gaeshi) before scoring a winning minor yuko score with a counter to an inner thigh throw (uchi- mata-gaeshi) with only seconds remaining.

Rajabli knew the game was up and even submitted as Petrie secured a hold. The Frenchman will face world champion and world number one Kim Jae-Bum of South Korea in the afternoon's semi-finals.

Kim came up against Olympic champion Ole Bischof of Germany in the last 16 in a clash of the titans.

But the Korean's gripping was too strong and using his deft footwork he was quicker to the attack, forcing a number of passivity penalties against Bischof, who could find no answer.

Kim then threw Russia's Ivan Nofontov with a foot sweep (kouchi-gari) for a waza-ari score to reach the last four. On the other side of the draw world number two Leandro Guilheiro of Brazil was in subdued and unspectacular form but ominously reached the semi-finals anyway.—AFP