Japanese continue to dominate at judo worlds

Japanese fighters continued to dominate on the second day of the World Judo Championships at the Palais Omnisport de Bercy here yesterday having taken two out of three gold medals the previous day. Masashi Ebinuma and Haruna Asami won the men’s under-66kg and women’s under-48kg categories respectively on Tuesday and their compatriots looked to continue in that vein the next day. Reigning world champion Hiroyuki Akimoto was highly impressive in reaching the afternoon’s semi-finals in the men’s under-73kg division where he will face compatriot Riki Nakaya. Akimoto breezed through his early opponents until he faced former European champion Kiyoshi Uematsu of Spain where he produced a sumptuous dropping shoulder throw (seoi-nage) to progress. In an entertaining bout against Estonia’s Kunter Rothberg he risked defeat when he was thrown for a half point waza-ari with a valley drop technique but he came back to pin his opponent for the full ippon score. His toughest fight was in the quarter-final against Russia’s Mansour Isaev where a single penalty afforded him victory. World number two Nakaya progressed early on due to his ground fighting but then ran into trouble in the later rounds when he needed golden score periods to get past Mongolia’s Sainjargal Nyam-Ochir and then Rinat Ibragimov of Kazakhstan. But he dismissed Nyam-Ochir with an outer leg sweep (osoto-gari) and then produced the biggest throw of the day, a huge pick-up (te-guruma) to dump Ibragimov out. However, it was probably world number four Dex Elmont of the Netherlands who most caught the eye, finishing off four out of five opponents with the maximum ippon from seoi-nage. Only China’s Liu Wei managed to resist that technique in the third round but he eventually lost to a penalty in golden score. There was one shock when world number one Wang Ki-Chun, the 2007 and 2009 world champion, was stunned in just 12 seconds by France’s Ugo Legrand. The home favourite sent the crowd wild with a slick inner thigh throw (uchi-mata) for ippon. Following a first round bye, world champion and undisputed world number one Kaori Matsumoto of Japan had no problems in reaching the semi-finals of the women’s under-57kg category. Only Brazil’s Ketleyn Quadros in the second round avoided losing by ippon, going down by waza-ari from an ankle tap (kosoto-gari) before veteran former Olympic champion Isabel Fernandez had to pull out of the quarter-finals with a knee injury. Matsumoto will face compatriot and world number four Aiko Sato in the semis after the latter knocked out former world champion Yurileidys Lupetey of Cuba en route. The other side of the draw produced a shock semi-final pairing with Brazil’s Rafaela Silva, due to face Marti Malloy of the United States. World number two Telma Monteiro of Portugal was dumped out by Germany’s Miryam Roper in the second round only for Roper to then be thrown with a huge hip-technique (o-goshi) by Silva in the quarters. Silva had earlier beaten Olympic champion Giulia Quintavalle of Italy with a sukeshi counter for waza-ari. Malloy upset Austrian world number three Sabrina Filzmoser in the last 16 and then beat Russia’s Irina Zabludina to make the last four. In the women’s under-52kg category Japanese pair Yuka Nishida and Misato Nakamura remained on course for a repeat of last year’s final in Tokyo. Reigning champion Nishida faces Romania’s Andreea Chitu in the semis while 2009 champion Nakamura comes up against Ana Carrascosa of Spain, the former European champion.