BEIJING: Naidan Tuvshinbayar won Mongolia’s first ever Olympic judo gold medal while Yang Xiuli gave hosts China their second title of the Games in Beijing yesterday.
Naidan beat Kazakhstan’s Askhat Zhitkeyev in the men’s -100kg final to make history for his country, a feat his opponent also managed by winning his country’s first Olympic medal in judo.
The Mongolian finished the day as he had begun it by stunning the judo world.
In the first round he dumped Japan’s reigning +100kg champion Keiji Suzuki on his bottom with a morote-gari (a double leg-grab similar to a rugby tackle) to send the favorite packing as Japan’s Games slump continued.
Suzuki had clearly twisted enough in mid-flight to avoid crashing down flat on his back, but the referees awarded Naidan the full ippon score.
“I knew that the Mongolian player would come out that way and the result showed that I was weak and he had a strong will,” said Suzuki.
Naidan then did Suzuki a favor by fighting through to the semifinals, therefore bringing the Olympic champion back into the repechage round and a chance to win a bronze medal.
However, Suzuki flopped again as he was thrown for ippon by German Benjamin Behrla.
It wasn’t just the Japanese star who bit the dust though as world champion Luciano Correa of Brazil also fell at the first hurdle, well beaten by European champion Henk Grol from the Netherlands.
Grol went on to win bronze after a contentious loss to Zhitkeyev in the semifinal when he felt a winning ippon score should have been awarded to him rather than his opponent - video replays proved inconclusive.
Exciting Azerbaijani Movlud Miraliev also won bronze after thrilling the crowd all day with his acrobatic throwing techniques, topped off with a back flip to celebrate his medal.
In the women’s -78kg division Yang’s victory was highly debatable as she was awarded the gold medal on a split judges’ decision following a 10-minute final against Cuba’s Yalennis Castillo.
The Cuban was only fighting at the Games because double reigning world champion Yurisel Laborde had defected to the United States in May after winning the Pan-American Championships in Florida.
Castillo and Yang could not be separated in the final, although the Cuban seemed to have snatched the title in golden score time only for the judges to wipe her score off after intially awarding it to her.
When golden score ended and the three judges had to lift a blue or white flag to nominate a winner, there was a palpable feeling that the hometown fighter would get the nod, and so she did. “The referees are bad,” was Castillo’s succinct assessment.
South Korean Jeong Gyeong Mi claimed bronze as she threw and then pinned Brazil’s Edinaci Silva.
Stephanie Possamai recorded her first victory in four attempts against Spanish veteran Esther San Miguel to win the other bronze medal.
