Shohei Ono and Misato Nakamura to sit out qualification for this year’s World Championships

Nikan Sports is reporting that Olympic champion and newly crowned IJF Judoka of 2016, Shohei Ono and Olympic bronze medalist, Misato Nakamura will both forgo an opportunity to qualify for this year’s world championships due to their withdrawal from the All-Japan Weight Class Category Championships, which will take place April 1st and 2nd.

Both will miss the competition due to their graduate school studies. Ono, is enrolled in Tenri University’s masters program and Nakamura will do the same at Tsukuba University.

Ono plans to continue his judo career while pursuing his studies, though Nakamura was a bit more veiled in her plans for the future. She has told the press that she will decide her future while pursuing her education. At this point, she has had a long career, having entered the world stage as a high school student. The lighter weights tend to be unkind to aging athletes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this spells the end of her career. She competed in 3 straight Olympics going back to Beijing in 2008, which is a feat not often achieved among Japanese judoka. At the moment the -52 category is stacked with young talent, including Uta Abe, who recently captured her first senior title on the IJF tour at the Grand Prix Dusseldorf.

On the other hand, Ono could be making a wise decision in sporting terms. Though men’s head coach, Kosei Inoue has described it as disappointing news, it’s not likely he will be out of competition for long. He is probably the most talented athlete in men’s judo at the moment and a short rest from competition may help prolong his career. Tadahiro Nomura took several notable absences from world competition, and surely this aided his ability to three consecutive Olympic titles. The -73 category in Japan is probably their deepest weight division, and it would be no surprise if the next -73 world champion is from Japan. Ono however, is simply operating on another level at the moment and that is unlikely to change in this Olympic cycle.