Christa Deguchi's story deserves a film, as it is worthy of the best Hollywood scripts. After the disappointment of not being selected for the Tokyo 2020 Games, in her second home, we may not have seen her on a tatami again. In less time than it takes to say it, however, she became world champion again last year and is now Olympic champion. A few weeks ago, she lost to the Korean Mimi Huh in the final of the Abu Dhabi World Championships. Despite this defeat, which still gave her an additional world medal, she qualified for the Games.
She is now the queen of Olympus in the -57kg category. What a destiny and especially what a performance for someone who becomes the first Olympic judo champion in Canadian history!
In the -73kg category, the story is no less beautiful, since we saw an exceptional champion, Hidayat Heydarov, who wins the supreme title for himself, for his family and for his country, Azerbaijan. It was no surprise that he was warmly greeted by Elnur Mammadli, 2008 Olympic champion, when he came down from the tatami. He had arrived in Paris as the big favourite for the competition, having won all the events he participated in this year. This only makes his performance today even greater. Athletes who achieve the double world championship/Olympic Games titles in the same year are not many and if we add his continental title from April, it almost makes your head spin.
Heydarov is powerful, technical, tactical and even when he is suffering, as was sometimes the case today, he finds the resources to reach for the stars.
Deguchi and Heydarov reached for the moon today and are now stars of international sport. They had the dream of becoming Olympic champions and they achieved it! Starting tomorrow, we will open a new chapter in the beautiful history of the Games with two new categories: -63kg and -81kg. This is a great show in we have in view.