Updated: 2007-09-17
On the fourth day of the 25th World championships the last four weight categories were fought. The Brazilian team were hoping for another world title to go with the three that they had already won. Japan won their first title of the tournament relying on the experienced Ryoko Tani to bring home gold. This was then followed by two gold medals in both the men’s and women’s open weight division from Muneta and Tsukada.
These championships had promised much and they really delivered some excellent judo producing champions from nine countries. An automatic qualification for the Olympic Games is given to those competitors who attain a fifth place or higher meaning that six people in each category can now concentrate on their preparation for Beijing 2008.
Women’s under 48kg
Having been absent from the last World championships Ryoko Tani, who before her marriage was known as Ryoko Tamura, was entered with no seeding. This resulted in the six times World champion being in the same quarter as one of the other medal favourites. France’s Frederique Jossinet, who has three major championship silver medals, was looking to win her first gold. Predictably the fight went into extra time where, to the delight of Tani’s fans, Jossinet was knocked down to the floor with ko ouchi gari for a koka.
Supporters of Tani follow her everywhere and the audience was awash with Japanese followers all wearing red jackets, banging inflatable plastic batons and chanting “let’s go Ryoko”. Her semi final fight was against Alina Dumitru of Romania who has been European champion four times. The fight was level until in the last thirty seconds Tani knocked Dumitru down twice to take her into her seventh World championship final.
In the year that Tani did not take part, the competition was won by Yanet Bermoy. The young Cuban is fairly unique in that she won her senior World title in 2005 before going onto win the junior one in 2006. An early lead by Tani left Bermoy trying to catch up and as the diminutive Japanese fighter was determined to add yet another World title to the six that she already has she finished the contest tactically. By dominating the grip and moving she prevented the Cuban from getting near her. The seconds ticked away and the bell rang sounding the end of the contest and an incredible seventh World gold medal for the phenomenal Ryoko Tani.
Men’s under 60kg
Neither the triple Olympic champion, Tadahiro Nomura nor the current World champion were present in the men’s lightest weight category. Both have been recently injured and so were unable to compete. The replacement for Great Britain’s Craig Fallon was James Millar who came up against the 2003 World champion in the second round. Korea’s Min-Ho Choi started well beating Millar with a waza ari and a yuko to a koka. A takedown from Millar was given ippon by the referee but was immediately overruled by the side judges. Minutes later Choi scored a waza ari winning him the match. He then came up against the Olympic bronze medallist from Mongolia. The fight did not go in favour of the Korean competitor and he had to be satisfied with winning a bronze in the repechage against the losing semi finalist Roki Draksic of Slovenia.
Next Tsagaanbaatar of Mongolia was against the 2004 Olympic silver medallist, Nestor Khergiani of Georgia. Khergiani had looked formidable all day and he powered his way to the final by picking up his Mongolian opponent and launching him for ippon. The defeated fighter could not believe it and dismay was etched all over his face. It continued to go wrong for him when in the bronze medal fight he was beaten by the Austrian 2005 silver medallist Ludwig Paischer.
A number of the potential medallists fell by the wayside today including Tatusaki Egusa of Japan and Ruslan Kishmakov of Russia who suffered a surprise defeat in the first round. He lost to Alaa El Idrissi from Morocco who fought really well against the European champion. Kishmakov was not able to progress any further as the Moroccan fighter lost his next match.
A good draw had enabled Ruben Houkes of the Netherlands to get to the final where he won against Khergiani. Here his game plan was extremely clever as his tactics of using a double lapel grip ruined Khergiani’s judo as he was unable to get close enough to the rangy Dutch fighter. In his interview after the medal ceremony he said “I never look at my draw in advance and I only realised I had won when the referee awarded me the fight. My hardest fight of the day was against the Iranian as he is very strong and tall.” Talking about his final he added “I have fought Khergiani maybe twelve times before and never won. My plan this time was to be strong and not to let him take my leg”. His approach paid off as he can now add his name to an exclusive list of World champions.
Women’s open category
In the women’s open weight category Anne-Sophie Mondiere of France was entered to try to better her result at over 78kg. She finished in fifth place on Thursday which in judo is just outside the medals. Weighing in as the lightest competitor in the category she attacked with a beautiful drop seoi nage for ippon on Samah Ramadan, the current African champion at over 78kg. Mondiere then beat Mary Prokofyeva of Ukraine to go into the semi final against Lucija Polauder where she lost on a wara ari and a yuko. The current European champion fought against Idalis Ortiz from Cuba where she was able to add a third World bronze medal to her collection. The other bronze medal went to the tall athlete from Russia’s Ivaschenko when she overpowered Borisik from Belarussia.
The favourite was the reigning silver medallist in the over 78kg class, Maki Tsukada of Japan. She easily made her way to the final against Polauder of Slovenia by holding down Elena Ivaschenko. There was 35kg difference between the two fighters in the final but this did not stop the lighter Polauder from taking the fight to Tsukada. After a couple of penalties she turned in and launched herself backwards knocking down her adversary but it was no score. So Tsuakada added a gold medal to her silver and earned the second crown of the day for the Japanese team.
Men’s open category
Dennis van der Geest has four World medals in the open category but disappointingly he chose not to enter this year. This left the other favourites Muneta, Rybak, Tangriev and Mikhailine to fight for the medals. Tall and powerful Aleksandr Mikhailine of Russia was not on top form and would not make it to the podium as he lost in both the pool and the repechage. His first defeat of the day was at the hands of Abdullo Tangriev of Uzbekistan who entered the semi final against the 2003 World champion Yasuyuki Muneta of Japan. Muneta is compact and powerful and he showed the audience why he was a World champion, when with a dominant grip he launched Tangriev in the air with an enormous standing seoi nage. The Japanese fighter’s opponent in the final was to be Yuri Rybak who had fought in the plus 100kg category on the first day. Rybak was unlucky not to take medal then and seemed determined to win today to add to his bronze World medal from 2005.
It was not to be Daniel Hernandes’s day as he lost to Mathieu Bataille of France for bronze with the other third place being won by Tangriev.
The contrasting styles of Yuri Rybak and Yasuyuki Muneta made for an excellent final which was appreciated by the crowd. The Belarussian has a distinctive European style with a high grip trying to bend his opponent over. With both men trying hard to win Muneta looked to be the more positive fighter. Dramatically the contest ended on the ground when a mistake by Rybak saw Muneta take the initiative to win.
This was Japan’s third gold medal which at the last minute took them to the top of the medal table ahead of the host nation Brazil. So, the final day ended with the 64 available medals being won by 24 different nations.
(Credit: IJF. Click here for further information.)
