The year is done, and for many, good riddance. Luckily, the year ended with some really good judo, and the All Japan Women’s Judo Championships was a great way to finish things off.
Since the full tournament is online, there won’t be any match analysis here, but instead, just a few reflections on the tournament.
The highlight of the preliminary rounds for most was watching 18-year-old Moka Kuwagata defeat 2x world champion, Sara Asahina. Kuwagata attends the same high school that world champion Uta Abe went to and has been one of the top junior athletes in Japan for the past few years. She was a silver medalist at the Cadet World Championships in 2019 and won the All Japan Inter-high School Championships as a first-year high school student in 2018. At 70kg, she gave up 65kg to Asahina, who was the heaviest athlete in the tournament. The match itself was fairly uneventful with Asahina picking up three penalties and being disqualified, but Kuwagata showed incredible heart and put in lots of good attacks. She showed her win was not a fluke by beating some very good athletes on her way to 3rd place overall. This is a great start in her push for the 2024 Olympics as the next cycle gets underway.
In winning her first All Japan Championships (open weight), Wakaba Tomita has put together a very impressive streak of wins, winning the tournament in a final that was a repeat of last month’s Kodokan Cup where she faced off against her teammate (Komatsu), Akemi Hashimoto. She has now won back-to-back Kodokan Cup tournaments and along with this title has shown very consistent results domestically. This, of course, gives her the best possible start to a new Olympic cycle, but before that, we need to ask why she isn’t named as the alternate in this Olympic cycle. While the decisions have already been made, and only a disaster would see her filling the Olympic alternate spot, her performance here warrants an alternate spot on the 2020 team, considering the abysmal performance of Asahina, who really seems to out of sorts in terms of her judo career.
As you may recall, Akira Sone became the first Japanese athlete to be named to the Olympic team after winning the 2019 World Championships, immediately followed by her win at the Osaka Grand Slam later that year. Sara Asahina was named the alternate, but one has to wonder if that decision was made prematurely. Earlier this year, she quit her Park 24 trade team and enrolled in medical school at Dokkyo Medical University. Her original plan was to retire from judo at the 2020 Tokyo Grand Slam after the Olympics, but with the postponement of Tokyo 2020, she has committed to continuing until the 2021 Tokyo Grand Slam.
It has been an understandably difficult period for Asahina, as she has made some major life changes, moving from Tokyo to Tochigi Prefecture, entering medical school and picking up a new corporate sponsor (Big Tree Sports Club in Tochigi). It seems she doesn’t even have elite athletes to train with in her area. After her latest loss to Kuwagata, she said she wasn’t making excuses, but that the tournament conflicted with some tests that she had at medical school, which did not allow proper preparation. Anyone who has studied and tried to compete in elite-level sports knows how difficult it is to study while competing at an elite level, so her result is entirely understandable. The problem lies in the fact that she is the current Olympic alternate.
As we saw from the withdrawal of the entire Park 24 men’s team due to a positive case of COVID-19 in the men’s tournament, Asahina is only one positive test away from becoming the 2021 Tokyo Olympian, which is quite a possible scenario given the current circumstances. With everything going on in the world, who knows what might happen.
As tough as it is to continue training as an alternate, she has agreed to the task and she needs to do right by those who entrusted her with the job. As a 2x World Champion, Asahina may understandably view her spot as the alternate as a demotion of sorts, but for someone like Tomita or her teammate, Hashimoto, the title of Olympic alternate and the opportunity to attend the Olympic games and be a part of the experience would most likely be a welcomed opportunity, and possibly even the experience of a lifetime. How many people on earth can actually say they were an Olympic alternate? Hopefully, this all becomes a moot point and Akira Sone is able to compete as planned next summer, but it’s food for thought. Perhaps the alternates were named too soon? A similar case could be made in the men’s -100kg division, with the Olympic alternate, Kentaro Iida losing to a fairly unknown journeyman last week, while his rival Ryunosuke Haga won after battling back from years of injuries. Haga looks to be back to back to full strength, but maybe just a few months too late.
Rant aside, this tournament, as always, was a great event. It was great that the All Japan Judo Federation streamed the preliminary matches online. I hope they continue this in the future. It was unfortunate that Natsumi Tsunoda and Ai Shishime, the two lightweight entrants drew such good opponents in their first matches of the day. Tsunoda fought -57kg Olympic alternate Momo Tamaoki, and Shishime fought -78 Olympic alternate Mami Umeki. Surely lots of people were hoping they’d go a little further in the tournament, but that’s the nature of judo.
Men’s tournament review coming up…
