Japan’s judokas Aaron and Hamada dominate; UAE’S Remarenco exits
TOKYO: Wolf Aaron has won the eighth judo gold medal by a Japanese athlete at Tokyo 2020 with a Golden Score Ippon victory over Republic of Korea’s Cho Guham. The 25-year-old put in a dominant performance to win the Olympic title in a highly competitive -100kg category.
Wolf, whose father is American and mother Japanese, battled valiantly against a cagey but dangerous opponent, who earlier in the evening had beaten 2021 world champion Jorge Fonseca in the semifinal bout. However, there was to be no repeat of Cho’s heroics, as Wolf won the contest in a time of 9:35.
The eight gold judo medals Japanese athletes have won at these Olympic Games is the joint-highest in history, equalling their tally from Athens 2004.
And with Harasawa Hisayosh (+100kg) and Sone Akira (+78kg ) competing tomorrow in the Nippon Budokan, the world may not have to wait long for a new record to be set.
Portugal’s Fonseca bounced back from a dislocated thumb in his semifinal with Cho to win a hard-earned bronze medal bout against
Shady Elnahas of Canada. The second -100kg bronze was won by ROC’S Niliaz Iliasov who beat Varlam Liparteliani of Georgia.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Hamada Shori won gold in the Olympic Judo women’s -78kg event at the Nippon Budokan.
In a re-match of the 2019 World Championship final Hamada defeated world no.1 Madeleine Malonga of France by ippon in just over a minute into the bout.
The victory by the 30-year-old saw her become Japan’s first medallist in the event since Anno Noriko won gold at Athens 2004.
Hamada, a former world champion, is the third Japanese woman to win gold in judo this week. It’s the first time in 17-years that Japan has won three medal in women’s judo competition at the Olympic Games. Germany’s Anna-maria Wagner, who is the current world champion, and Brazil’s Mayre Aguiar took out the bronze medals in their respective bouts.
The UAE’S medal hopes in Tokyo suffered a huge blow as judoka Ivan Remarenco had to face a first-round defeat to Canadian Elnahas Budokan on Thursday. Judo is one discipline in which the UAE were hopeful of winning a medal, by repeating the Rio feat. Sergio Toma’s had fetched a bronze for the country at Rio Games. The UAE was pinning hopes on a medal in Tokyo for judokas Victor Scvortov and Remarenco. But Scvortov’s challenge had ended in Tokyo with his first round exit on Monday.
Both the Moldovans were naturalised by the UAE, which enabled them to represent the country at the Olympics. They had also participated in the Rio Olympics under the UAE flag, before representing their native country at London Olympics in 2012. Sprinter Hassan Al Noobi, the last member of the UAE six-athlete contingent, will be in action at the 100m heats.