Day One: Preliminaries

The preliminaries, in all categories, offered high class judo and a winning spirit across all three tatami. At -60 kg the top half of the draw went according to plan with Imranov (AZE), the number one seed, winning all contests comfortably to reach the semi-final. The quarter might not have appeared so easy though with 2022 junior European champion Ignasiak (POL) and 2022 cadet world silver medallist Ray (FRA) in play but both went out early.

Yamato Fukuda (JPN), one of only 3 seeded Japanese judoka from the team of 18 to be seeded in Tajikistan, won his pool faultlessly, only struggling to find position against Jonathan Yang (USA) in the quarter-final.

Yang arrived in Dushanbe having become the USA’s first ever cadet world champion only a few weeks ago in Lima and so his performance in Dushanbe is impressive, to say the least. He passed Ayre (GBR) in round two after a bye and then Augusto (BRA) before losing to Fukuda.

Fourth seed Orynbassar (KAZ) looked to be following suit when he won through to the quarter-final of pool C but there he lost, much to the delight of the crowd as it was a relative unknown, Kudbudinov (TJK) who upset the natural order. He has won 3 Asian cups in the last ten months though and is therefore one to watch, perhaps a new face to assign to future IJF podia. He won his semi-final emphatically too, launching Murodillaev (UZB) with an enormous left sided osoto-gari.

To face Kudbudinov in the final, there was a semi-final between Imranov and Fukuda. The Azerbaijani looked to be edging it, leading by two penalties after a minute and a half but the Japanese judoka was not ready to lose that way and dropped under his opponent and rose up with a huge ippon-seoi-nage to score ippon.

At -66 kg Kairi Kentoku (JPN) took out the number one seed in round three and continued his winning ways all the way to the final. Japan were in search of an all-Japanese gold medal contest sending Fukuchi through the bottom half of the draw. Both the Japanese fighters were unseeded and in fact the semi-finals only included one of the top 8, Bekmuradov (UZB) the fifth seed.

It was Bekmuradov who kiboshed Olympian Serdar Rakhimov’s plans of becoming a post-Olympic Games junior world champion, knocking him out in the round of 16. Fukuchi was too much for him though, knocking him out with a strong o-uchi-gari to ko-uchi-gari combination. The Japanese delegation had their wish.

At -48 kg, 20 year old Kristina Dudina (IJF) was the one to watch. The current senior European champion was unseeded and unafraid of anyone facing her in Dushanbe. She beat the number one seed, Aliyeva (AZE) in the round of 16; an excellent win. However, the Chinese team do not travel too much and are therefore not well known but Hui (CHN) left a trail of clues at senior events which should have pointed Dudina towards the challenge that awaited her.

This is Hui’s first junior event but she has an Asian open gold and a silver medal from Perth. Those experiences were enough to propel Hui past the unofficial favourite into the semi-final. There she met an unlikely adversary in the shape of Szabina Szeleczki (HUN), who beat the judoka who had beaten the top ranked athlete in the group. The Hungarian was having a great day but couldn’t handle the Chinese fighter in their semi-final.

On the bottom half of the draw, Lok Yi Ho of Hong Kong, as world number 3, was the one to beat and Harsvolgyi (HUN) did just that but was herself beaten by Rebecca Valeriani (ITA).

Summer Shaw (GBR), having won gold at the German junior cup just before the European -21 Championships, came in with great spirit and win well against Lazakh and Mongolian opponents to reach the quarter-final with Valeriani. She threw the Italian too, for waza-ari, in the opening exchange, but soon after threw through a straight arm and was disqualified. It was a disappointing end to a promising day for the Brit.

Valeriani then had to face Yoshino of Japan in the semi-final and it was an insurmountable test. China and Japan would meet to decide the title in the afternoon’s final block, at 4pm local time.

The -52 kg category followed Japanese plans, mirroring the team’s victories at -66 kg. Iroha Oi, cadet world champion just weeks ago in Lima, forged through the group, including eliminating the number one, Micaela Sciacavelli (ITA). Rafaela Rodrigues (BRA), the silver medallist in Lima sat at the top of pool B and as such would face Oi if she reached the semi-final, and she did! She beat home favourite Qurbonzoda (TJK) along the way but then lost to Oi again to drop into the bronze medal contest.

On the other side of the draw it was Mio Huh (KOR), little sister of world champion and Olympic silver medallist Mimi Huh, who came out on top of pool C. In the semi-final she came upon against Oi’s teammate, Senju Nosho, and lost. The all-Japanese final was ready to play out.

The final block will begin at 4pm and every contest can be watched live on JudoTV.com.