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 2000
Junior World Championships - Day 3
(Women -70kg, -78kg, Men
-81kg , -73kg)
NABEUL, TUNISIA - 28 OCTOBER , 2000
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out our Day 3 photo gallery »
By: Matt Carter
Nabeul, TUNISIA - October
28, 2000 - Triumph for Japan and disappointment for the host nation
were two of the main stories today as Japan's dynamic -73kg player,
Masahiro Takamatsu captured the first gold medal of these championships
for Japan to go along with the 3 silver and 5 bronze that they've
amassed after three days of competition here at the 2000 HYUNDAI
Junior World Championships. Meanwhile, in the women's -70kg, Tunisia's
Yousra Zribi made it as far as the semi-finals after an exciting
ippon victory with Sukui-nage over Gonzal Aquilera of Cuba in the
quarter-finals that brought the enthusiastic crowd to their feet.
In the semi-final match up against Svia Tsimashenka (BLR), Zribi
was injured when she was thrown by the Belarusian. Sadly for the
home crowd, Zribi had to be carried out on a stretcher with what
appeared to be a neck injury (although unconfirmed at the time of
writing), cutting short Tunisia's chances for a medal on home soil.
-70kg
(Contest Sheet - PDF)
The quest for gold in the -70 kg class began quickly with Zribi
looking strong against Dimitra Lazarou (CYP), whom she threw for
ippon with a lovely Harai-goshi. This set up the match against Aquilere,
which she won with a very nice throw to score ippon and excite the
crowd. Zribi looked to be a strong candidate to reach a spot on
the podium, but in her semi-final bout she was taken by surprise
by the eventual silver medallist from Belarus who threw her hard
with a huge Te-guruma to end the match, and the competition, for
Zribi who officially finished in 5th place after not taking part
in the bronze medal fight. The bronze was automatically awarded
to Japan's Yoshimi Shichijo. The Cuban girl fought well in the repechage
and met Haixia Wang (CHN) in the other bronze medal final. Wang
scored a koka on an O-soto-gari to go along with a chui that the
Cuban had received earlier in the match to claim the bronze medal.
The final featured Natalia Pissareva of Russia against Tsimashenka.
Pissareva had previously beaten Wang in the semi-finals with a skillful
Juji-gatame and was out for gold in the final having disposed of
Italy's Erica Barbieri, Canadian, Catherine Roberge and Samantha
Lowe of Great Britain. In the final, Pissareva attacked with a typical
Russian-style pick-up technique only to have the Belarusian hook
her right leg into the Russian's left leg to block the throw, this
set Tsimashenka up for a powerful O-uchi-gari, winning the match
and the title for Pissareva.
-78kg
(Contest Sheet - PDF)
-78kg, with only 23 competitors, was the smallest category of the
day, but saw some big ippon throws from Raquel Prietro (ESP), who
threw Deborah De Souza (BRA) with a perfect Ippon seoi-nage in the
semi-finals as well as Anastasi Matrosova of the Ukraine earlier
in the day. Prietro looked to be in fine form as she fought her
way into the final, beating eventual bronze medallist, Megumi Nagase
(JPN) in a strong tactical first match and then going on to throw
Annick Rouleau (CAN), Ahlem Azzabi (TUN) and De Souza. It was in
the final that she met her match against Matrosova. The tall Ukrainian
seemed to be in command for much of the fight, but Prietro almost
caught her with a fine Sumi-gaeshi attempt two minutes into the
final. However, some 25 seconds later, Matrosova scored with a well
timed Kata-guruma from a very low position to take the championship.
The other bronze was taken home by Eva Brisseni of France who won
some key fights in the repechage before defeating De Souza of Brazil.
-73kg
(Contest Sheet - PDF)
The men's -73kg group was perhaps the most exciting of the day,
with a number of potential gold medallist emerging from the morning's
preliminary rounds, not the least of which was Russia's Djami Abouladze.
Abouladze had been impressive all day. He scored decisive victories
over some tough opposition including Constantin Cojoc (ROM), whom
he threw for waza-ari with a powerful Ko-soto-gari and Manue Gamburyan
(USA) who was held down with a vice-like Kuzure-kami-shiho-gatame.
He also came out on top of In Sub Woo (KOR) and Jeremie Ruegsegger
(CAN). Also impressive was Rusian Lushchykov of the Ukraine. Luchchykov
beat a strong Armerian by the name of Varuzhan Israyelyan as well
as the Italian and Portuguese fighters en route to a spot in the
final. It was Lushchykov who finally upset Abouladze in the semi-finals
with what appeared to be a choke. Abouladze was justifiably disheartened
by the loss, by regained his composure to come back and take the
bronze from Renan Pinto of Brazil.
On the other side of the draw there were a couple of other medal
hopefuls including Guillau Elmont (NED) whose incredible agility
made him a threat coming out of the prelims. Equally impressive
was Daniel Mallaun of Austria who threw Pinto (BRA) with a rare
Obi-tori-gaeshi earlier in the day to excite the crowd. Czech player,
Tomas Muzik also had flashes of brilliance, but it was Japan's Masahiro
Takamatsu who turned the most heads. Takamatsu, a first-year student
at Tsukuba University in Japan, had a number of tricks up his sleeve
including a brilliant Ippon seoi-nage to Ko-uchi-maki-komi combination.
Takamatsu simply refused to be thrown and twisted out of some impossible
positions. He was equally at home on the ground and had a nice transition
into San-kaku-jime. On his way to the gold medal, he disposed of
Elmont, a tough Georgian and Turan Musayev (AZE).
The final pitted Takamatsu against Lushchykov, the two most dynamic
fighters on the day. Both fighters were rather short in comparison
to the others in their category, but they more than made up for
it in strength, speed and ability. Each judoka attacked relentlessly
throughout the match; Kata-guruma, Uchi-mata, Seoi-nage and Te-guruma
were all attempted without success. Then the Japanese scored what
would turn out to be the decisive koka. He came in for Ippon seoi-nage
which was resisted bt the Ukranian who dropped his hips and shifted
his weight onto his back leg, the instant he did this, Takamatsu
changed the direction of the technique, dropped his right arm behind
Lushchykov's right leg and launched in with Ko-uchi-maki-komi to
score the point. A last second twist from Lushchykov prevented the
throw from scoring much higher. Takamatsu, who is also the reigning
Senior National Champion in Japan by virtue of winning the Kodokan
Cup earlier this year said afterwards that he is very happy with
his gold medal. His coach added that he is now in line to represent
Japan at the next Olympic Games in 2004 in Athens, Greece. The second
bronze medal was awarded to Daniel Mallaun of Austria, who had a
strong day and won his final match with a nice Tomoe-nage against
Israyelyan (ATM).
On a side note, Peter Lomax (GBR) was a last minute addition to
the British team, filling in for Britain's number top seeded player
who was unfortunately bitten quite seriously by a dog on the morning
of the day he was to travel with the team to Tunisia. Despite the
short notice and his being 3 kilograms overweight when he arrived
in Tunisia, Lomax looked up to the challenge in a hard fought victory
against Chingi Baymatov (KAZ) in the second round of fighting. Lomax
was later defeated by the Romanian figher, Cojoc.
-81kg
(Contest Sheet - PDF)
The -81kg category was a large one with 36 competitors in it. The
preliminaries saw a number Te-guruma-style pick ups, which was a
trend that continued into the block finals starting at 4:30pm. In
the first semi-final G. Mamrikishvili of Georgia met Yong Woo Kwon
of Korean. The Korean had a lot of supporters in the audience, but
it wasn't enough as the strong Georgian managed to beat him out
of the final. The other side of the draw featured a semi-final that
included Roberto Meloni (ITA) and Maratbek Myktybekov of Kazakhstan.
Meloni had a huge quarter-final and upset a determined Takashi Suzuki
of Japan. The Italian went up by waza-ari in the early stages of
the fight and managed to hang on despite a last minute frenzy of
attacks from Suzuki. The final pitted two warriors against each
other and it was the Georgian who struck the decisive blow at the
1:55 mark with an amazing Ura-nage to win by ippon. Earlier, the
first bronze medal between Kwon and Jason Jones of the Netherlands
was won in an incredibly exciting match that went back and forth
for the full 4 minutes, with the Korean having just enough to hold
off Jones in the final 10 seconds for the bronze. Roland Kasper
(AUT) was the other bronze medallist, defeating Myktybekov with
a waza-ari.
In other related news, an official press conference was held today
at 3:00pm in the Kheops Hotel. The press conference was conducted
by IJF President Y.S Park and covered a number of topics. One of
which was the issue of video replays for use by referees in competition.
Mr. Park stated that the International Judo Federation would not
use such methods. Other topics discussed included the staging of
a Juvenile World Judo Championships, but it was argued that although
this is an interesting idea, it would be very expensive and only
a few countries would be able to attend. Finally, Mr. Park was asked
to comment on the level of judoka from African nations at these
championships. He responded by saying that it is not correct to
judge the level of the competitors simply by continent as there
is no physical difference in the athletes, rather it was simple
a case of competitors having access to proper resources, facilities
and training partners. He sited the example of 1996 Olympic champion,
Djamel Bouras of France, who originally hails from Algeria, as proof
of what African players can achieve. The final day of action begins
tomorrow with the women's +78kg category and the men's -60kg and
-66kg categories.
MC
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