Five of the seven Japanese men who have qualified for the Paris Olympics participated in the Polyak Imre & Varga Janos Memorial tournament in Budapest, Hungary, on June 6-9, the last UWW Ranking Series event being used to determine Olympic seeds. Three came home with gold medals in the meet that was also serving as a final tuneup for the Olympics.
Higuchi, Kiyooka claim freestyle golds
In freestyle, Rei HIGUCHI won the gold at 57kg and Kotaro KIYOOKA followed suit in a stacked 65kg weight class. The other Japanese entered in freestyle, Hayato ISHIGURO, captured a bronze medal at 86kg.
Higuchi, the 2016 Rio Olympic silver medalist, started his campaign with an 11-0 quarterfinal victory over Almaz SMANBEKOV (KGZ). In the semifinals, he fell behind 8-0 before roaring back to chalk up a wild 19-8 win over 2023 European champion Aliabbas RZAZADE (AZE).
In the final, Higuchi put away AMAN (IND), the 2023 Asian champion and Asian Games bronze medalist, 10-0 for his third victory by technical superiority in three matches.
Since returning to 57kg, Higuchi has had a constant battle with the scale, but had no problem making weight for the tournament. However, another hurdle to overcome emerged when he came down with a 38.2 C fever on the morning of the competition.
“I thought about defaulting,” Higuchi said. But he decided to fight on, thinking, “I may be in a situation like this at the Olympics.”
Talking about his stunning comeback in the semifinal, “I didn’t panic and thought to just keep building up points,” he said. Overall, “I felt I have raised my level.”
Rei HIGUCHI defeats AMAN (IND) in the 57kg final. (photo by Koji FUSE)
For Kiyooka, his weight class had just seven entries, so it followed the Nordic round-robin format, but had no shortage of top names. In his first group match, he lost 5-2 to Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Haji ALIYEV (AZE). But he rebounded with an impressive 7-2 victory over reigning world champion Ismail MUSUKAEV (HUN).
An injury to his opponent gave him a win by forfeit in his third match, which left Kiyooka, Aliyev and Musukaev all with 2-1 records. Based on ranking criteria, Kiyooka finished first in the group, putting him into the semfinals against Austin GOMEZ (MEX), a Paris Olympic qualifier from the Pan American region.
Kiyooka disposed of Gomez 12-6, then won the gold with a 12-8 victory over Iranian newcomer Abbas EBRAHIMZADEH (IRI) in which he also had to rally from an eight-point deficit.
“I was able to have a number of matches against wrestlers who to me are stars and legends,” Kiyooka said. “I experienced both winning and losing, so this was the best possible road trip leading up to the Paris Olympics.”
Kiyooka and Higuchi are both alumni of Nippon Sports Science University and continue to train together there. Kiyooka said that seeing his senior teammate come back from an 8-0 deficit in an earlier match kept him calm when he faced the same situation in the final.
“I just thought to do what I had to do,” said Kiyooka, who went overseas with the objective of seeing how his arsenal of moves would fare against global competition. “I used my moves, so to some extent it gives me confidence.”
Kotaro KIYOOKA shoots for a takedown against world champion Ismail MUSUKAEV (HUN). (photo by Koji FUSE)
At 86kg, Ishiguro had a first-round bye and faced Iranian superstar Hassan YAZDANI (IRI) in his opening match in the quarterfinals, where the former world and Olympic champion defeated him 12-2.
Ishiguro was pulled back into the repechage and went straight to the bronze-medal match when his Puerto Rican opponent defaulted due to injury. Ishiguro then took a major scalp and the bronze with a 5-1 victory over world bronze medalist and three-time Asian champion Azamat DAULETBEKOV (KAZ).
“I lost to Yazdani, but I think I was able to wrestle my match against Dauletbekov, which puts a medal in Paris into view,” Ishiguro said.
Kusaka grabs Greco gold, Sogabe 5th
In Greco, world bronze medalist Nao KUSAKA showed he will be a force to be reckoned with in Paris by taking the 77kg gold, while Kyotaro SOGABE finished fifth at 67kg.
Kusaka’s weight class had 19 entries and he successfully negotiated his way through his first three matches to advance to the semifinals, where he edged world silver medalist Sanan SULEYANOV (AZE) 2-1.
In the final, Kusaka faced Aik MNATSAKANIAN (BUL), a two-time world bronze medalist who qualified for Paris at the World Qualifier. But soon into the match, Mnatsakanian was forced to default due to injury, giving Kusaka a second straight title, having won the gold at the Asian Championships in April.
“I was ready to go in the final, so it feels a bit strange [to win by default],” Kusaka said. “I don’t really feel that I won the championship.”
Although there was a measure of dissatisfaction, Kusaka noted, “To be honest, my condition was really bad. My body didn’t move at all, and I was wondering what I should do. To come out of that situation with a win is good.”
Nao KUSAKA follows up his victory at the Asian Championships in April by winning the 77kg gold in Budapest. (photo by Koji FUSE)
Sogabe started his tournament in the quarterfinals at 67kg with a 7-1 loss to world champion Luis ORTA (CUB), who will be aiming for a second straight Olympic gold in Paris in a second weight class.
“I really got a sense of why he is the world champion,” Sogabe said. “He seemed to have a style that I had never seen before, and he was tough to deal with.”
A victory by default in the repechage put Sogabe into the bronze-medal match, where he gave up a controversial last-second takedown in a 6-5 loss to Saeid ESMAELI (IRI).
“The bad part of me came out,” Sogabe said. “I think it was because I didn’t keep attacking up to the end.”
Japan limited to one gold at Asian U17
The Asian U17 Championships were held June 22-25 in Amman, Jordan, and Japan sent a full contigent of 30 wrestlers in the three styles. Yu KATAOKA won for the second straight year by capturing the girls’ 49kg title, but it proved to be Japan’s lone gold of the tournament in a harsh dose of reality.
Yu KATAOKA celebrates winning her second straight gold at the Asian U17 Championships. (photo courtesy of UWW)
Kataoka, the 46kg champion last year, defeated Zulfiya SOBIRJONOVA (UZB) in her opening match, then beat 2023 46kg bronze medalist Asema TOROGELDIEVA (KGZ) to advance to the final. She won the gold with a 9-3 victory over Na HU (CHN).
“The Chinese opponent in the final was very strong, so I relied on my technique and speed,” Kataoka said. “Once I got the first point, I rode the momentum. The foreign wrestlers are powerful, so when I shot in on a tackle, I remained careful of counters until I finished the move.”
The girls squad also came away with two silvers and five bronzes. Harua YAMAMOTO at 43kg and Hana YOSHIKAWA at 61kg both finished second in their first-ever international tournament.
As it did last year, India was the dominant force, winning eight of the 10 golds, and China also had a strong tournament. Japan, which perenially finishes in the top two in the team standings, was relegated to a rare third-place finish.
“Up to now, it’s always said, ‘The foreign wrestlers are powerful,’ but what caught my eye was that in this tournament, they showed improved technique in getting in on tackles and defending against them,” team coach Honka SAITO said. “I feel a necessity to work on technique to overcome their improvement.”
The medalists in the girls’ competition pose for a group photo upon arriving back in Japan.
In Greco-Roman, all 10 wrestlers lost in the first round. Of those, Hiro SAKAMOTO at 51kg and Daichi TSUTSUMI at 71kg were able to make it to the bronze-medal matches, where they both came away victorious.
“As long as it is a world of competition, I can’t make any big statements if the results are bad,” team coach Takahiro UMENO said. “The wrestling itself was not so bad. There were many close matches that didn’t go our way.”
In Japan, those in the U15 age group do not wrestle Greco, but there are plans to start doing so from this year. This will mark the start of raising the Greco level of the young generation.
The freestyle team in Amman failed to win a gold for the first time in five years, but came away with three bronze medals — Rikuto MATSUMI at 48kg, Kaito MATSUMI at 51kg and Yuya YOSHIDA at 92kg.
“It was the first international tournament for every team member, so there was an aspect of not being used to being overseas,” coach Futoshi YOKOYAMA said. “What stood out was losing points on counters after getting in on tackle attempts. There are little adjustments that need to be made.”
