Japanese men defeat Korean by 3-2 in world team final

Japan captured the double at the team event of the World Judo Championships in Astana. The two best teams of the individual tournament Japan and South Korea facing off in the final. 2014 World Champion, Ebinuma Masashi was opposed to the 2015 world champion An Ba-Ul. Ebinuma launched the first attacks and An was penalised for passivity. Using the same strategy of being always first on the hands and attacking non-stop.

Ebinuma again pushed An to be penalised a second time, while the strongest attack of this first fight came from the Korean side, An launching a Korean-style seoi-nage from which the Japanese miraculously escaped for no score. But with one minute to go, Ebinuma was still ahead of his opponent. This time it was Ebinuma’s turn to be penalised for dropping on his knees but this was not enough for An to come back, giving a first point to Japan.

The second fight opposed the 2014 world champion, and 2015 world silver medallist, Nakaya Riki and the bronze medallist of the 2015 edition of the worlds in U73kg, An Chang-rim. A first penalty for passivity was given to An, followed by a second one a minute later. Nakaya also got penalised for false attack, when An seemed to take advantage of the weaknesses of his opponent. After having tried several times his reversed seoi-nage, one more time, An having both hands Nakaya’ss right collar, suddenly started to roll under his opponent centre of gravity. Impossible to escape from the Japanese for a perfect ippon. 1 - 1 after two fights.

The third contest between Nagase Takanori and Lee Seung-Su was decided by penalties to the Korean, which brought Japan back in the race. For the fourth fight, Yoshida Yuya met the 2015 U90kg world champion Gwak Dong Han. After almost a minute of fight, Yoshida was penalised with a first shido for false gripping. One more shido for both athletes were distributed. In control until the last seconds, Gwak mentioned the penalty difference, to win one more point for Korea. Everything had to be decided during the final match. Thus the last fight opposed Okitani Takeshi and Kim Sung-Min. After more than a minute of observation, both Ojitani and Kim were penalised for passivity and the Korean was almost thrown with a tremendous o-soto-gari, which cost him a new penalty. It was KIM’s turn to put the Japanese in danger as he launched a sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi but for no score. One minute to go and the final result was still uncertain. Nevertheless, Ojitani could keep the score and the final victory went to Japan.

The first bronze medal was for Mongolia. The Alau Ice Palace was alive with the cheers of the public, in -66kg, Gabit Ysseimbetov tried to give the first point to Kazakhstan against Khashbaatar Tsagaanbaatar. But the Mongolian scored the first waza-ari of the match, which was enough to win the first point for the Mongolian delegation. A second point was added when Ganbaatar Odbayar defeated Zhansay Smagulov in U73kg, the Kazakh being penalised four times. Otgonbaatar Uuganbaatar finally gave the third and winning point to Mongolia after having scored a yuko with a drop seoi-nage executed with one hand concluded with a strangulation for ippon. Giving to chance to the host country, Mongolia added a fourth point with the victory of Lkhagvasuren Otgonbaatar against Samat Yessen. The last fight of the bronze medal match could have been a final of the world championships as the local hero, 2009 World Champion, Maxim Rakov was opposed to the 2008 Olympic Champion, Naidan Tuvshinbayar. Rakov won a first and last point for the host country, Mongolia finishing on the podium.

In the second bronze medal fight Georgia faced Germany. At the end of the first fight only a yuko could differentiate Vazha Margvelashvili and Sebastian Seidl in the favour of the Georgian. It was time for the Olympic champion, Lasha Shavdatuashvili, to enter the tatami, against Igor Wandtke for a really tough fight, which ended with a waza-ari on the Georgian side and the second point for Georgia. The solid Sven Maresch stepped on the tatami against Nugzari Tatalashvili, with a clear mission: no more mistakes, the point was needed for Germany. Mission accomplished for Maresch as he kept the first yuko that he scored with a ko-soto-gari until the final gong. But this was in vein as Beka Gviniashvili added a third point to the Georgian team to already secure the victory and the medal. Despite the weight difference, Varlam Liperteliani concluded with a superb seoi-nage for ippon against Sven Heinle. Bronze medal for Georgia.

Japan won the bronze for the first time since 2002.