Japan retains mixed team gold, unified Korean team wins historic bronze at World Judo Championships

Japan beat France 4-1 to take the gold medal and retain their mixed team world title while the unified Korean team won bronze alongside Russia.

Each mixed team is made up of three male judoka (-73kg, -90kg +90kg) and three female judoka (-57kg, -70kg, +70kg).
In the +90kg bout, world bronze medallist Hisayoshi Harasawa beat Rio 2016 Olympic bronze medallist Cyrille Maret after two minutes of golden score by a waza-ari score. Harasawa threw with uchi-mata after two minutes of added time to give Japan a 1-0 lead.

That lead was doubled in -57kg bout as Japan’s world champion Tsukasa Yoshida defeated London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist Priscilla Gneto. Yoshida opened the scoring with a waza-ari from a harai-makikomi and held down the French judoka with a ushiro-kesa-gatame for 10 seconds.

The Japanese closed in on retaining their title after the -73kg clash as Arata Tatsukawa defeated Guillaume Chaine in golden score. The Japanese pressured the Frenchman who was reprimanded with three shidos and was disqualified.

World silver medallist Marie Eve Gahie kept France in the final by beating Japan’s world bronze medallist Yoko Ono in the -70kg bout.
Gahie pulled one back by ippon at the halfway point of the contest as the French judoka countered Ono for ippon.

However the French hopes were shortlived as Shoichiro Mukai defeated world bronze medallist Axel Clerget in the -90kg contest to seal the Japanese success.

Mukai was the hero as he won with a ko-soto-gake for ippon to end the 2018 World Judo Championships in style.

Earlier Japan beat the unified Korean team 4-0 in the first semi-final while France surged past Russia 4-1 in the second.

In the first bronze medal contest Russia outfought Azerbaijan to win 4-1 as the unified Korea team recorded their place in the history books with an impressive and convincing 4-0 win over Germany.

The 2018 edition of the World Judo Championships were held over eight days from 20 to 27 September at the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan,.

The World Judo Championships are the highest level of international judo competition, along with the Olympic judo competition. The championships are held every year (except the years when the Olympics take place) by the International Judo Federation, and qualified judoka compete in their respective categories as representatives of their home countries.

Other notable performances during the closing days of the individual competitions included openweight world champion Sarah Asahina being crowned the heavyweight world champion in the +78kg final, the 21-year-old defeating three-time Olympic medallist Idalys Ortiz of Cuba.

Tokyo Grand Slam winner Shori Hamada of Japan won a World Championships gold at her first attempt in the -78kg final. She defeated world number one Guusje Steenhuis of The Netherlands in golden score after the two rivals could not be separated in regulation time.

The Japanese dominance also saw four-time Grand Slam gold medallist Chizuru Arai successfully retain her world title and red backpatch in the -70kg final, beating four-time Grand Prix winner Marie Eve Gahie of France.

In the men’s competitions, world number one Guram Tushishvili of Georgia won his first world heavyweight title beating home judoka Ushangi Kokauri as the men’s +100kg crown switched hands for the first time since 2007.

Golden score was required in the -100kg Final which eventually went to South Korea’s Guham Cho. Two-time Grand Slam winner Cho, who took silver at the Asian Games last month, won his first World Championships gold medal after beating Olympic and world silver medallist Varlam Liparteliani of Georgia.

World number three Nikoloz Sherazadisvili made history for his country in the -90kg category as he was crowned the first male judoka from Spain to win a senior world judo title. Sherazadisvili defeated Budapest Grand Prix bronze medallist Ivan Felipe Silva Morales of Cuba to win gold in a compelling contest between the best two judoka in the category.