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OSAKA (Japan), Sept 14: Tiny judo queen Ryoko Tamura grabbed a historic sixth straight world gold medal here on Sunday, crowning Japan’s comeback in the sport they call their own.
Asians swept aside European rivals in all four finals on the final day of the world championships as South Korea won their third men’s gold and China followed with their second women’s title.
It stretched by one the individual record of most consecutive world judo titles, adding to her first Olympic gold in Sydney in 2000.
Keiji Suzuki, usually a reserve light-heavyweight, won the men’s open title by flooring Sydney Olympic bronze medallist Estonian Indrek Pertelson by a leg throw to wrap up Japan’s gold hunt at six medals, three each for men and women.
Japan came home with only one men’s title and three women’s at the last championships in Munich two years ago.
Japan hopes to repeat their record world championship performance in 1999 — four titles for each sex — at next year’s Athens Olympics.
South Korean bantamweight Choi Min-Ho pushed down Britain’s Craig Fallon with a leg haul for a perfect “ippon” knockout finish in the men’s 60kg final.
In the semi-finals, Choi outpointed defending champion Anis Lounifi of Tunisia, who became the first African world judo champion in 2001.
Britain took their second silver medal here when Karina Bryant, who won the women’s over-78kg heavyweight bronze three days earlier, battled Asian Games champion Tong Wen of China in the open final.
Country Gold Silver Bronze Total
Japan 6 1 2 9
South Korea 3 0 0 3
China 2 0 0 2
Cuba 1 3 4 8
Germany 1 1 3 5
Argentina 1 0 0 1
Iran 1 0 0 1
North Korea 1 0 0 1
France 0 5 0 5
Britain 0 2 1 3
Netherlands 0 1 2 3
Estonia 0 1 1 2
Georgia 0 1 0 1
Switzerland 0 1 0 1
Russia 0 0 4 4
Brazil 0 0 3 3
Belarus 0 0 2 2
Ukraine 0 0 1 1
Spain 0 0 1 1
Italy 0 0 1 1
Poland 0 0 1 1
Portugal 0 0 1 1
Turkey 0 0 1 1
Tunisia 0 0 1 1
Serbia 0 0 1 1
Azerbaijan 0 0 1 1
Uzbekistan 0 0 1 1
Total 16 16 32 64
—AFP
