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2020 Kodokan Cup – Who to Watch This Weekend (Men’s Draw Only)

October 30, 2020 By judo fan Leave a Comment

As many of you are probably aware, the All Japan Judo Federation will live stream the Kodokan Cup on their YouTube channel this year for the first time this weekend. The opening ceremony will start at 10am (JST) and the finals will start at 15.05 (JST). You can find live bracket updates here, but text is only available in Japanese.

I hate to cobble together such a quick and dirty article, but I imagine some reading this blog may not be familiar with some of the athletes who don’t regularly get international exposure, so I thought I would try to get something out quickly for those interested in this weekend’s tournament.

This category is wide open with the top 3 players of the last 5 years all not competing. My prediction is Genki Koga, but as we have written about before, you never know what kind of condition he will show up in, and the Covid pandemic makes predictions fairly futile.

Personally, I am interested in the young athletes that have just started to show up in the senior ranks. Hayato Kondo, Taisei Fukuda, Daiki Hamada and Keiji Tsujioka are all still in the junior ranks, but will be ones to watch in the future. I have been particularly impressed with Kondo, who I think will be a future winner at the Junior World Championships. This category will present some very interesting contrasts with some of the older veterans, like Dai Aoki, Yuma Oshima and Sho Tateyama.

I don’t see anyone in this field really making a strong challenge to Takato and Nagayama for the moment, but there is likely a future world champion or two among this group.

With Hifumi Abe still only 22 years of age, it is hard to see someone in this weight class being much of a threat to his dominance anytime soon, but then again, not many predicted that Joshiro Maruyama would be challenging Abe for the final spot on Japan’s Olympic roster. There are a number of young athletes that are exceptional in this category. Yuji Aida and Takeshi Takeoka are teammates at Kokugakuin University and have both have dominated the junior circuit. Teppei Saiganji, whose sister Riho is also a national champion will make his first appearance at this level. The Tsukuba University freshman is one of the best up and coming athletes at the moment.

This category should be really interesting. Masashi Ebinuma has decided to continue on despite missing the Olympic selection at -73kg. He starts his day with a very tough match against Ishigooka of Tsukuba, and then presumably another tough match against Nippon Sports Science University’s Ryo Tsukamoto. The division really seems like the class of this tournament in my opinion. If Ebinuma wins this one, it will be an incredible feat, but one that is highly likely. One of the national team coaches also predicted Ebinuma to come out the victor, extending his time on the national team to well over a decade.

In what is almost sure to be Takanori Nagase’s final Olympics next summer, this category is wide open for the next 4 years. There is no clear heir to Nagase’s dominance, but lots of good prospects. Unfortunately, Takeshi Sasaki has withdrawn, but this category should be very exciting. Yoshimichi Kamochi, whose father is a former great light-heavyweight and the current head coach of the JRA trade team that includes Mashu Baker is now 20 years of age. He has been one of the most lauded athletes of recent years, and he will be fighting to earn a spot on the senior national team roster.

The sentimental favorites are Goki Maruyama and Kenya Kohara for me. Maruyama is the older brother of Joshiro Maruyama (2019 World Champion) and has had a decorated domestic career but failed to have the same success internationally. Much the same, the former Tokai University captain, Kenya Kohara has not had the international results that accurately reflect just how good he is. Both of them are excellent in open-weight team tournaments, where the style of matchplay is much different from international competition.

Finally, my guess is that this is the last we will see of Keita Nagashima, now the second oldest member of the Japanese team. It’s always sad to see the great ones leave.

This category has some good athletes, but Sanshiro Murao is on another level right now. I predict he will be a multiple-time world champion in the future. With Kenta Nagasawa not competing, I think he should have a clear path to the final. I think only Kazuya Maeda or Maybe Goki Tajima will have a chance at beating him this time.

It is disappointing that Ryunosuke Haga had to withdraw from this tournament. I was hoping to see him back at his best. We get to see how the reigning Junior World Champion Kazunari Kamigaki will fair against some very good competition. This category is probably one of the most competitive of all. Kyohei Kakita, and Daiki Nishiyama and Yuki Ishiuchi are superb veterans, who all have a good shot at winning. Kentaro Iida, who for me has the most attractive judo of all the athletes at this particular tournament is the favorite, but there are plenty of contenders in this category.

Yusuke Kumashiro, the oldest member of the national team, Tokai University coach and defending champion has had to pull out due to a knee injury, but that doesn’t mean this won’t be a good tournament. 8 of the 16 (would have been 9 if Kumashiro was still in) athletes are from Tokai University or one of their affiliated high schools. That’s quite a feat, but also worrying from the standpoint of the overall health of Japanese judo nationally.

My prediction may be a bit far-fetched, but I think the Junior World Champion, Sosuke Matsumura will win. I’m hoping to see him and Daigo Kagawa (who has an excellent new YouTube channel) meet in the semi-finals if Matsumura can get past Kageura, which I think he will.

Unfortunately, without Tatsuru Saito here (no idea why he isn’t competing), this tournament won’t really settle who will be next in line to replace Harasawa as the top heavyweight. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be anyone here that can return the Japanese heavyweights to the top of the medal stand at a World or Olympic games. Perhaps one of the high school students, Mitsuki Sugawara or Yuta Nakamura will make their case here.

And there you have it. I am very sorry I couldn’t get to the women’s draw in time. I promise to make my next blog post focused on the women. Thanks for reading!

The Kodokan Cup is Here, Finally!

October 16, 2020 By judo fan 6 Comments

The 2020 Kodokan Cup will be held on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at the Chiba Port Arena in Japan. It is the first major judo competition to be held in Japan since the 2019 Osaka Grand Slam nearly a year go and a lot has changed since then.

The Kodokan Cup is one of the largest domestic tournaments in Japan that decides the national team for the coming year. The “A” team members (top 1 or 2 ranked athletes in each weight category) do not compete, but for the rest of the elite players in Japan, this tournament carries a huge amount of importance. Being nominated to the national team carries with it not only funding, but exposure to international competition, regular training camps at the Japan National Training Center, and for students, the exposure necessary to get corporate sponsorships and future employment. This year, the number of athletes has been greatly reduced due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be contested without an audience.

The brackets for the tournament were released today, and here are some of the notable stories going into the tournament:

Absences:

Sara Asahina – One of the developing stories and notable absences, is that of Sara Asahina. The former world champion is the alternate for the 2020 Olympic games in the +78kg category. However, after dropping out of school a year early to focus on judo, she has now left her trade team, Park 24 after only a year on the team. She said she would be retiring after the 2021 Tokyo Grand Slam, but it is looking more and more like she has already retired for all intents and purposes.

Ryu Shichinohe – The +100kg, former world silver medalist will also not be lining up, though he has vowed to continue on with his career. He is probably hoping for a strong showing at the All-Japan Open Weight Championships that will be held in December to earn back his spot on the national team.

Hayato Koga – the -73kg phenom and son of the great Toshihiko Koga has been one of the most-watched judoka in Japan, going all the way back to when he was a child. Having been a long-time member of the national team, he made the decision to retire from elite judo and focus on a teaching career at Keio Senior High School in Tokyo.

Ami Kondo – The former world champion and olympic bronze medalist announced just hours ago that she would be retiring from the sport. She narrowly missed out on her second birth to the Olympics but has left the sport as one of the greatest ever.

Mashu Baker – The Rio Olympic gold medalist is not slated to line up in the -90kg category. No public announcement about his condition has been made, but injuries are likely the culprit.

Noteworthy side-stories:

Mitsui Sumitomo Women’s Judo Team – Mitsui Sumitomo is one of the most successful women’s judo teams in history, having produced many past Olympic and world champions. In the past two months, three of their athletes have left under slightly unusual circumstances. Ami Kondo, who as mentioned announced her retirement did so at a time that is not typical in Japan. Normally, an athlete of her stature would compete one final time in a big national event, but it is possible that Covid-19 prevented her from having a proper farewell tournament. The more unusual story though has been the departure of two current national team members, Nami Nabekura and Rinoko Wada. Both have opted to leave Mitsui Sumitomo and compete as unattached athletes. This is quite an unexpected move for both and it will be interesting to see how they fare in this tournament as athletes without a team. Both Wada and Nabekura are good bets to win the entire tournament.

Toru Shishime – Longtime gatekeeper in the -60kg category and former world bronze medalist will make his debut in the -66kg category. At his age, the weight cut was probably too much.

Kento Shimizu – For those who like the underdog, this is your man! Shimizu, the 2010 jr. world champion has been around for quite some time. The 29-year-old finished second at the 2011 Kodokan Cup, and then seemingly fell off the face of the earth with barely any significant results between 2013 and last year. However, he came out of nowhere to win the prestigious All Japan Businessman’s Tournament and thus has earned a spot in this year’s tournament. A win here would cement one of the most unusual careers you could think of.

Predictions:

Predictions are almost pointless. It’s so hard to know who will be on form this year. Most of the police departments have opted not to have practice. Some universities and companies have been able to train more regularly than others, and some athletes will have hardly trained at all in the past year. Regardless, here are my predictions:

Women:

-48 – Wakana Koga

-52 – Ai Shishime

-57 – Haruka Funakubo

-63 – Masako Doi

-70 – Yoko Ono

-78 – Mami Umeki

+78 – Hikaru Kodama

Men:

-60 – Genki Koga

-66 – Yuji Aida

-73 – Masashi Ebinuma

-81 – Takeshi Sasaki

-90 – Sanshiro Murao

-100 – Ryunosuke Haga

+100 – Sosuke Matsumura

And there you have it. My apologies for having abandoned this blog for so long. A new work environment, a son, and some other life changes have prevented me from updating this blog. However, I have a new project in the works, and so I will be doing my best to keep up with this blog in the future. Thanks for your support!

News Shorts: Ojitani, Haga, Baker, and Nagase Get Demotions

June 3, 2018 By judo fan 9 Comments

This post is for JW of the London Whatsapp Group, who requested I post some small “snacks” in between more researched blog posts. I apologize for the sparse posts on this blog. Coaching a judo team and trying to maintain a blog is a real balancing act. Hope this satisfies your appetite, JW!

Japanese National Team is reshuffled:

At the close of April’s All Japan Championships, officials of the All Japan Judo Federation led by Jun Kanno held a meeting to determine the new national team that will determine future assignments until this fall’s Kodokan Cup, when the team will once again be reassessed. While there were only a few changes to Japan’s B team, the A team got a pretty heavy face lift. Ojitani was sent down to the B team, and Yusei Ogawa took his place on the A team along with Hisayoshi Harasawa. Ryunosuke Haga, who will be out at least until November due to injury was replaced by Aaron Wolf in the -100kg category. Mashu Baker, who is recovering from a shoulder injury and competed in China last month, also got a demotion, being replaced by Kenta Nagasawa, who beat him back in April. Takanori Nagase, another injured veteran was replaced by Sotaro Fujiwara. The -73 category will not have a member on the A roster due to Soichiro Hashimoto’s 6-month suspension for inviting a female “friend” to his room during a national training camp. Masashi Ebinuma, Shohei Ono and Hashimoto are all currently on the B team roster.

On the women’s side, there were no major changes. World champion Mami Umeki (-78kg) and world silver medalist Natsumi Tsunoda (-52kg) were both demoted, while Yoko Ono and Miku Tashiro were both promoted to the A team. Former world champion Nae Udaka (-57kg) has had the longest tenure on the team, and at 33 years of age, she is a full 15 years older than Uta Abe. The women’s side is equally, if not more competitive than the men’s side at the moment. There is not a single athlete in any category that is comfortably ahead of their competitors. Out of both men and women, possibly the only athlete whose position is fairly secure is Hifumi Abe’s at -66kg. Other than that, it will be a very intense 2 years leading up to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.

Riki Nakaya begins journey back to the top in a new weight class:

In a recent interview (http://www.judo-ch.jp/interview/nakaya/), former world champion Riki Nakaya discussed his future after moving up from -73kg to the -81kg category. Because of the points system in place in Japan, as well as the tournament structure, it is often difficult to change weight classes, especially in the second half of an Olympic cycle. Nevertheless, Nakaya joins fellow world champion Masashi Ebinuma, who recently moved up to -73kg in a bid to gain a spot on Japan’s Olympic team in 2020. -81kg is well populated with young talent in Japan, and it seems unlikely that Nakaya will have time to settle into the category before the Olympic Games, but anything is possible.

Mark your calendars for the All-Japan Businessmen’s Judo Team Championships on June 8th and 9th:

Last year, I wrote a post about Hidehiko Yoshida competing for the team he manages, Park 24, and leading them to victory in the 3rd division of Japan’s semi-pro judo league. The rosters of each team have not been posted on the internet as of yet, so it remains to be seen whether Yoshida will be suiting up again this year or not. However, Kaori Matsumoto is rumored to be making an appearance for her company, Beneseed, in what will be her first competition back after giving birth to her son. At 30 years of age, her aim is to win gold in the next Olympic Games. Aaron Wolf, still not back to %100 after tearing his meniscus, is also rumored to be using this tournament as a warmup for his participation in this summer’s world championships. Whether or not this will be live streamed is yet to be announced, but the odds are that it will be streamed via youtube at the following URL:

https://www.youtube.com/user/zenjitsujudo/

Be sure to check in. Personally, these are some of the most fascinating tournaments to watch because of the open weight format. Hiroyuki Akimoto used this tournament as his retirement tournament back in 2016 where he defeated all of his opponents via ippon, most of whom weighed over 100kg. It is really a shame he never competed at the All-Japan Open Weight Championships. Akimoto was this generation’s giant slayer. Nobody could take on the big men better than he could. Here he is, winning the All-Japan High School Championships in the open weight class at a mere 68kg:

2018 All Japan Open Weight Recap: the Winners and Losers

May 6, 2018 By judo fan 1 Comment

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.