2018 All Japan Open Weight Recap: the Winners and Losers

The 2018 edition of the All Japan Open Weight Championships is now in the books, and it turned out to be all that it was hyped up to be. In fact, it may have been one of the most well-contested tournaments in recent memory. There were simply so many athletes that were in a position to win, and with the olympics coming to Tokyo in two years time, the stakes were incredibly high. There were of course some heart-breaks (more on that later), and we may have seen several athletes for the final time at this tournament, but that is part of the drama that makes this competition so special. Harasawa resolidified his place as one of the top contenders for the olympics, despite a string of underwhelming performances since his silver-medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He of course, is the big winner of this year’s edition, but there were other winners, as well as losers, all of whom deserve a great deal of respect for their performances last week.

The Winners:

Hisayoshi Hirasawa – A year ago, Hirasawa suffered the upset of the tournament, when he was choked out by journeyman Masaru Momose, in what was Momose’s final victory as an elite judoka. Harasawa went on to the Budapest World Championships and failed to get to the medal rounds, losing to junior competitor Stephan Hegyi of Austria, and leaving him without an individual title since the 2016 All Japan Weight Class Championships prior to the Rio Olympics. Within that span of time, a number of young heavyweights made their transition from the junior ranks, and I honestly thought that Harasawa would not have the longevity to make it until 2020. He showed he is still very much a contendor last week, and did so with a superhuman gas tank, and an uncanny ability to manage his efforts and wear down his opponents. In his final match with Ojitani, he of course won with determination and endurance, but he was also very calculated and was able to weather Ojitani’s aggressive start, do enough not to receive penalties and grind out the win. He did the same against Shichinohe and Kato in the earlier rounds. He is once again the man to beat, but he will need a good performance at this year’s world championships to keep his position as Japan’s “A” ranked player in the +100kg category.

Takeshi Ojitani – Though he lost by a hair in the final, I really think the final could have gone either way, and there were a couple of times I thought that Harasawa could have been penalized for inactivity. Though Ojitani has also had a year of several sub-par results including a 7th place finish at the Grand Slam Tokyo last year, he leads the Japanese heavyweights in international and domestic points by quite a wide margin (source: http://data.judo.or.jp/back/point/detail/286/2018-05-03) due to the fact that he is still the most consistent athlete Japan has in the +100kg category. Though he probably doesn’t have the stuff to beat Riner anytime soon, if I was a betting man, he would be the one I’d bank on to bring home the hardware, no matter what tournament it was.

Hirotaka Kato – At 33 years of age, he just seems to keep getting better. He scored with tomoenage in each of his wins and secured yet another 3rd place finish in this event. The 2012 champion is the lightest champion in the modern era and has stayed relevant far longer than most would have thought. Though his days as an international seem to have past him by, his performances in domestic competition are as good as it gets. With his opponents weary of his outstanding newaza, few were willing to give him a chance on the mat. Thus, he demonstrated his mastery of tomoenage, scoring with it in his first three matches. Only Harasawa was able to stuff his attempts. As in years past, Kato now poses an interesting dilemma for Japan’s coaching staff. By way of the current point system and his performances in important tournaments, he fully deserves to represent Japan as one of their top -90kg athletes. However, his domestic performances have far out shined his international performances, and it is unlikely we will see him compete much outside of Japan.

 

Kentaro Iida – Iida has been at or near the top of Japanese judo going back to his days as an elementary school student and by all accounts, he certainly has the qualities to be one of the great names in Japanese judo. He is a complete judoka, with an uchimata that will likely one day be on par with that of Kosei Inoue. However, his transition into elite judo has been met with a great degree of inconsistency, though he has given us several glimpses of what is possible. After a quick second round loss at the Paris Grand Slam in February, he only managed 5th place in the Tokyo qualifier to this tournament. A couple weeks later lost his semi-final match against journeyman Yusuke Kumashiro at the All Japan Weight Category Championships. However, he not only managed a quarterfinal appearance at this tournament, he upset 2012 Olympian Daiki Kamikawa, and showed the world what he is capable of doing if he is on his day. The fight for the 2020 Olympic spot at -100kg is one of the most intriguing with a number of athletes in the running. Aaron Wolf is obviously one of the front runners, but Iida is not far behind.

 

The juniors – This year had an unprecedented number of young athletes. Two high school students and two athletes who were high school students just a little more than a month ago. Takaya Yamaguchi, Nihon Univerity’s new ace in the -100kg category showed beautiful judo on his way to 5th place in his first appearance. Overshadowed throughout his high school career by another -100kg phenom, Kiyotaka Sekine, I didn’t think that he would factor into the tournament the way he did. His upset win over Hyoga Ota, the 2018 Ekaterinburg Grand Slam champion was one of the highlights of the day. While there has been a surge in high school participants in recent years, this year’s class seems to have particular class. Sanshiro Murao, though only a 3rd year high school student is already showing that he has all the tools to be one of the greats in Japanese judo. He along with Kanta Nakano of Tenri High School, qualified through two of the toughest regions in Japan and showed without a doubt that they deserved a place in this tournament. The fourth, Kazunari Kamigaki, though lacking the credentials of the others, still managed to win his first bout before losing to Kokoro Kageura, the 2018 Paris Grand Slam champion.

 

 

The Losers:

Ryu Shichinohe – Prior to the tournament, Shichinohe tweeted that this was to be his 8th appearance and he wanted to finally reach the top step on the podium. Twice second, Shichinohe just barely squeaked through the Kyushu region qualifiers, earning the final slot into the tournament.  With poor performances at last year’s Kodokan Cup, he wasn’t even invited to April’s All Japan Weight Class Championships. Having missed out on that tournament and without any notable results over the past year, Shichinohe needed to be at his best in this tournament to salvage his place on the national team. His quarterfinal matchup against Harasawa saw him come as close to beating Harasawa as we have ever seen, but the stakes were too high here to be able to settle for anything less than a win outright. He needed a dominant win, and having fallen short of that, his career is now on life support. At 30 years of age, he must be wondering whether it is time to call the curtain on his career. Though the national team has been sorted out, it still hasn’t been made public. However, I would not be surprised if the next Japanese national team roster does not include Shichinohe’s name on it.

 

Daiki Kamikawa – Talking about Kamikawa is becoming repetitive, but like Shichinohe, he is probably no longer on Japan’s +100kg roster.

Kokoro Kageura – In NHK’s broadcast of the event, Japan’s head coach, Kosei Inoue came on for an interview at the close of the tournament to give his thoughts on the tournament. Kageura was one of the few athletes Inoue mentioned. Unfortunately, the comments were not positive. Inoue said that this tournament was a big assignment for Kageura to show that he could assert himself as one of the top heavyweights in Japan. Kageura seems to have shown us here that he competes much better internationally than he does domestically.

Hyoga Ota – Earlier this year, Ota delivered his biggest victory as a senior, winning the 2018 Ekaterinburg Grand Slam and let the world know that he was ready to take the reigns as Tokai University’s next great heavyweight after Ojitani and Kageura. He isn’t off track, but it’s doubtful many expected him to lose to Yamaguchi, who had graduated high school only a month and some change ago. The high school standout must now be wondering whether he can stand out in a very large and growing crowd in the +100kg category in the senior ranks.

 

Judo fans all over the world – With all of the hype surrounding the lightweights Naohisa Takato and Soichi Hashimoto, both matches turned out to be fairly anti-climactic. The media in Japan hardly covered any of the other athletes in the days leading up to the tournament, only to have both go out in their first matches of the day. The rules don’t suit the lighter athletes at all, and it is a shame because the results may have been quite different under a different rule set. Having seen Hashimoto compete against heavyweights many times when he was in university, I am confident that he and Shohei Ono could have put up some good results if the rules were the same as they were when Koga made his run into the final round back in 1990. Unfortunately, I doubt we will see a sub-80kg player ever make it into the later rounds again, though Nagase managed a 3rd place finish a few years back at -81kg.

The IJF and national federations all over the world need to recognize that fans love the David vs Goliath type matches and somehow, the judo world needs to create some sort of outlet for these matches to take place wherein the lighter athletes are allowed to use a full-range of judo techniques in order to defeat their heavier opponents. Perhaps an open weight tournament allowing leg grabs might make the playing field a bit more level. A tournament of this sort would certainly draw some much needed attention to the sport.

Well, that is my quick, one take analysis of last week’s event. Please comment and subscribe to my twitter and youtube accounts. As always, thank you to everyone who reads this blog. Your support is much appreciated. I just wish there was more time in the day to contribute to the blog more regularly.