Olympic gold medalist Masato Uchishiba suffered a shock upset in
the men's under-66kg final on Thursday, narrowly beaten by Russian
minnow Alim Gadanov to miss the title on the opening day of the
2007 Beijing Judo Open.
The 29-year-old blamed a tactic misplay and a low mood of
himself for the defeat in the "Good Luck Beijing" Olympic test
event final.
"I think there are two main reasons for me to lose the final,"
he told media at a post-match press conference. "First of all, I
did not use some difficult techniques to vie for a title. And
secondly, I just played three matches before entering the final and
did not tune myself up to the finest condition."
On the women's part, Europe's promising judoka Caroline Lantoine
of France claimed the first gold medal of the tournament, as the
former European junior champion took only 39 seconds to beat this
year's Pan American Games silver medalist Erika Miranda of Brazil
with an ippon at the final of women's 52kg category earlier.
Xiao Jun, last year's Chinese national judo championships winner
of the women's 48kg category, settled for a bronze medal after
choking her opponent from Mongolian Bundmaa Munkhbaatar to an ippon
win, while her compatriot Li Hongye missed her chance in the other
third-place match and lost to Russian Natalia Kuzyutina with a koka
against a waza-ari and a yuko.
In the men's 66kg final, Uchishiba, who won the Olympic gold
medal three years ago in the same category in Athens, was edged on
a yuko after the match went full time of five minutes.
"It's a pity for me not having won the gold medal. I hope next
year I could sit here as an Olympic champion and answer your
questions with a gold medal," he said.
"Later I'll back to Japan, which's holding many internal trials
and competitions ahead of the Olympic Games in Beijing, and I'll
try to improve my skills and tactics," added the Japanese.
His rival from Russia, who's barely known on the world stage of
judo before winning the Super World Cup in Rotterdam in September,
made the final with an even tighter victory over Brazil's Leandro
Cunha, with a koka in the Group A final earlier in the evening.
The bronze medals went to Chinese Liu Changchun, who lost to
Uchishiba in Group B final, and the other group's repechage winner
Jordan Amoros from France, both winning the third-place match with
an ippon.
(Xinhua News Agency November 16, 2007)