Jessica Klimkait seals first judo world title to book Olympic spot
The Canadian World No. 2 delivered an aggressive performance to win the Budapest tournament, and a place at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Judo
Jessica Klimkait delivered an aggressive and accurate performance to claim her first judo world title on Tuesday (8 June), and a place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The Canadian 24-year-old dominated the early exchanges in the women’s -57kg gold-medal match against her highly-rated Japanese opponent Momo Tamoki in Budapest, Hungary.
But underdog Tamoki, who was competing in her first World Championships, demonstrated a cultured defence to force the match to golden score.
From there, World No. 2 Klimkait drove her opponent to the floor for a waza-ari to seal victory, and Canada's one confirmed spot for the Games in Japan.
Earlier in the session, Canadian defending -57 world champion Christa Deguchi missed out on the chance to qualify for the Olympics in 2021. She was overpowered in the bronze-medal final by Germany’s Theresa Stoll.
The much taller German used her height advantage to deflect the experienced Canadian’s early attacks, before taking total control of the match.
After eight seconds in the golden-score period, Stoll floored her 25-year-old opponent to secure the ippon and the bronze - her first world championships medal.