DOHA –– Natsumi Tsunoda claimed her third successive global title as judo superpower Japan collected their first gold medal of the World Judo Championships.
Tsunoda, 30, beat the number world one Shirine Boukli of France by ippon in the under-48kg category in Doha, adding to the titles she won in Tashkent in 2022 and Budapest a year earlier.
Wakana Koga also won one of the bronze medals for Japan, with the other going to Assunta Scutto of Italy.
On the opening day of the world championships in Doha, Tsunoda won all five of her matches in the women’s 48-kilogramme category by ippon, including the final against top-ranked Shirine Boukli of France.
“I’m relieved and simply happy,” said the 30-year-old Tsunoda, who took a big step toward next year’s Paris Olympics.
“I knew how important it was to go all the way here. Without being satisfied with this result, I want to make use of it in the next event.”
Tsunoda joined Ryoko Tamura and Noriko Anno in the three-peat club.
Japanese compatriot Wakana Koga, 21, settled for bronze after losing to Boukli in the semifinals and winning a third-place match via the repechage.
In the men’s 60-kg category, Takato lost to eventual winner Francisco Garrigos of Spain by ippon in the semi-finals and then suffered a foul loss to South Korea’s Lee Ha Rim in a match for bronze.
It was the first time that Takato has missed out on a medal in an international event since the world championships in Tokyo in August 2019.
In Doha, the 29-year-old was looking to become the only Japanese five-time world champion.
“I feel, once again, that it’s difficult to keep winning,” Takato said. “Everybody is studying my judo, so things were harder than I expected.”
In the men’s title of the opening day, Spain’s Francisco Garrigos added the world gold in the under-60kg category to the European championship he won last year.
Garrigos beat Dilshodbek Baratov of Uzbekistan in the final, while Giorgi Sardalashvili of Georgia and Lee Ha-rim of South Korea each took bronze medals.
These championships mark the return to competition of Russian and Belarusian judokas, albeit as neutral competitors, after they were banned in reaction to Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.
A Russian, Sabina Giliazova, was in action in the women’s under-48kg category but was beaten in the second round by Blandine Pont of France.
Seventeen judokas from Russia and two from its ally Belarus were listed as competing at the world championships.
The International Olympic Committee favours allowing Russians and Belarusians to compete as neutral athletes without national symbols as qualifying ramps up for next year´s Paris Olympics.
The IOC – which last year recommended excluding Russian competitors on security grounds but now argues that would be discriminatory – has left the final decision to the governing bodies in each sport.
Some sports like track and field have kept an exclusion in place on Russians and Belarusians in international events.
Several more Olympic sports have said they are preparing to readmit Russians and Belarusians, but haven’t yet done so, some citing a need for extra time to decide on a process or vet athletes. The International Judo Federation has moved comparatively fast.
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