Nagasawa Kenta outclasses top athletes U90kg

What is always impressive with Japan, the motherland of judo, is that they always come with new names, who suddenly show beautiful judo. It was again the case today, with a newcomer, Nagasawa Kenta, taking into account that his best result so far on the international scene was a fifth- place on the occasion of the Tokyo Grand Slam last year. In the final he was opposed to a more well-known athlete as it was the 2013 world champion Asley Gonzales (CUB) who joined him to fight for gold.

Both athletes were rapidly penalised for passivity and then the Cuban received a second penalty after he again blocked his opponent. But when Nagasawa was again penalised for the same mistake, a few seconds were left, too short to make the difference. Obviously neither of the two finalists wanted to be eliminated on a penalty, so this moved the contest into golden score where the best attacks were delivered from both sides. But Gonzales seemed to be more tired than his younger opponent, who awaited the smallest and only mistake from the 2013 world champion, to take the advantage to throw him for waza-ari with a tai-otoshi technique.

The first bronze medal fight saw the two French representatives, Axel Clerget (FRA) and Alexandre Iddir (FRA), stepping on the mat to decide between them, who will get the most points for the Olympic qualification, in a category in France, which is not determined yet. Nevertheless with his 10th position on the World Ranking List, Iddir seems to have a small advantage over his teammate Clerget, who signs a comeback at his best level after several Months of injury. Iddir scored the first with a superb drop seoi-nage for waza-ari. Taking risks, Clerget exposed himself to the precise attacks of Iddir and was again thrown for waza-ari with a right handed seoi-nage.

The second bronze medal match opposed Ramin Gurbanov (AZE), who once stepped on an international podium last year in Jeju, and the bronze medallist of last year’s world championships, Kirill Voprosov (RUS). The Russian received the first penalty for passivity after a little more than one minute. After one minute and 54 seconds, Gurbanov pushed Voprosov to the edge and counterattacked a weak attempt of ko-uchi-gari, with a powerful ura-nage for ippon.