Grand sweep: Japan go on gold rush as Tokyo Grand Slam gets underway
Japanese judoka win all six classes on Day 1 of the first Tokyo Grand Slam in five years.
There’s home advantage, and then there’s home advantage.
Japan won all six finals on the first day of the judo Tokyo Grand Slam on Saturday (3 December), when the hosts turned Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium into a mining factory.
On top of the six golds, judo’s homeland struck four silvers and seven bronze to dominate the men’s -73kg, 81kg, -90kg and women’s -57kg, -63kg, -70kg.
This Grand Slam is one of a number of World Tour events which count towards the world rankings which decide allocation of quota spots for Paris 2024.
Kohara Kenya stole the show in the -90kg, stunning reigning Olympic champion Nagase Takanori with victory in golden score by waza-ari.
Tokyo 2020 -57kg bronze medallist Yoshida Tsukasa was also tripped up, by Funakubo Haruka who captured her third Grand Slam title of the season.
Hashimoto Soichi (-73kg), Takaichi Miku (-63kg), Mashiyama Kosuke (-90kg) and Niizoe Saki (-70kg) were the others to top the podium.
The unheralded Kohara won his first Grand Slam at the age of 28.
“It was very close. You let up even for a second and you pay the price”, Kohara said.
“So I just tried to stay focused. I tried not to worry too much about my opponent but he’s someone I’ve never beaten before in the seven, eight times we fought.
“I wanted to win, no matter what." - Kohara Kenya
The late bloomer credited the victory to the work he was able to put in during the pandemic.
“I hadn’t competed much because of Covid the last two years. But on the bright side, it gave me the time to polish my game and I think you saw the improvement tonight," Kohara said.
“My strength is in kumite. Every match today, I was in control of the belt work. There’s not a whole lot of time to the Paris Olympics. Every match counts, and I need to try to win every one of them.
“This is only the beginning”.
Nagase took the defeat in stride, although he has not won internationally since Tokyo.
“He wanted it and I have to admit, he got to me a bit," he said of Kohara. “I think that was a big reason for the loss. He was just better today.
“I felt pretty good about my conditioning. I can be happy with that. But I wasn’t as thorough as I should have been.
“There’s not as much time to Paris as one might think. If I want to win at the Paris Olympics then I need to work backwards from that. I have to keep at it."
Of the 12 finalists on the day, all but two were Japanese. Only Aoife Coughlan of Australia in the -70kg and Germany's Eduard Trippel in the -90kg were not from Japan.
And of the 12 bronze medals on offer, seven went to the home side who will see Tokyo 2020 champions Abe Uta (-52kg), Hamada Shori (-78kg), Sone Akira (+78kg) and Aaron Wolf (-100kg) hit the tatami on Sunday.
All this, despite Japan's big guns like Ono Shohei, Abe Hifumi, Takato Naohisa and Tokina Funa having pulled out of the tournament.