After competing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, many athletes naturally took an extended break to recharge their batteries. Takanori Nagase, however, was already thinking about defending his crown in Paris. The legendary judoka was back practicing on the mats only a month after the closing ceremony had ended. His dedication to the sport is well known and is one of the main reasons why he has been so successful. On Tuesday, the Nagasaki native won his second consecutive gold medal at the Games and his fourth Olympic medal in total. He also claimed an individual bronze in Rio and a silver in the team event in Tokyo.
Takanori Nagase Finds Form at the Right Time
Remarkably, though, Nagase wasn’t one of the favorites for gold going into the Games. Between the last Olympics and March of this year, he failed to win a single international competition. Following his victory at a Grand Slam event in Antalya, Turkey four months ago, however, he started to gain some momentum. He timed his run perfectly and showed his class in Paris. On his way to the final, he defeated number one in the world Matthias Casse from Belgium and Italy’s Antonio Esposito. Georgia’s Tato Grigalashvili, winner of the last three world championships in the -81 kg category, was his opponent in the final.
Nagase took control of the bout early on, scoring a waza-ari with a tani-otoshi, in which the judoka uses the weight of the drop to take an opponent down. Around a minute later, he executed the same technique to win the contest by ippon. “This is the tournament to decide the real champion of the world,” said Nagase after the final. “My focus was to win here in Paris. I kept believing in myself even after I couldn’t win for a stretch. I had confidence because of my experience in the previous two Olympics.”
Japan Regains Top Spot on the Medal Table
Nagase’s triumph was his country’s third judo gold at the Paris Olympics following Natsumi Tsunoda and Hifumi Abe’s victories earlier this week. Japan currently sits at the top of the medal table with seven golds in total, one ahead of China and Australia.
