Kaori Matsumoto wants to fight without golden backpatch in Rio

Kaori Matsumoto is the only Japanese to defend her Olympic title in Rio de Janeiro. Matsumoto knows the importance of an Olympic title, as silver and bronze is a commodity in Japan. Only the gold counts for the Japanese World and Olympic Champion fighting U57kg.

But it won’t be easy for Matsumoto who is still human and lost recently in Guadalajara against her friend Lien Chen-Ling who’s living in Japan and trains with her. Also Sumiya Dorjsuren (MGL) and Rafaela Silva are dangerous opponents as they defeated her last year.

“At the Rio Olympics I can finally compete without my golden backnumber, just like all the participants, everyone will be the same and I can fight as a challenger. I can’t wait for them, it will be fun.”

“I do feel nervous when I fight but I do enjoy these moments because only I can experience and feel it. My strong point is my ne-waza. I can do lots of techniques. Even though the first technique may not work, I will try a second and a third or more. They may know how to defend against the first attack but not against all of them, so I take all techniques to the competition.”

 “My heroes are my father and my mother. Thanks to them I can do judo and they are my biggest supporters. I am one of five children and I’m the fourth. My older brother started judo to make him stronger as he was physically weak and the other kids followed. But my parents weren’t wealthy and worked very hard and drove us back and forth from the dojo whilst they ran a business. I was brought up watching their devotion and that’s why judo became special to me. I felt the heavy obligation to repay them through judo. I order to repay my parents I want to take them to the Olympic. I took gold in London and that was my mother’s share, so I’d like to take gold in Rio, so that both of my parents have a medal each. It gives me the opportunity to repay my dad.”

“My dream right now is to study English and teach judo to people across the globe. I would like to contribute to society filled with smiles for judo.”