World number 6 judoka Hiroyuki Akimoto announces retirement

2010 World Champion Akimoto Hiroyuki announced his retirement. Akimoto didn’t qualify for the Olympic Games and the 30 year athlete said it was enough to fight at top level. Akimoto is still the number six of the World Ranking U73kg.

Akimoto won the Grand Slam of Paris in 2015 and he won the Tokyo Grand Slam three times in 2011, 2014 and 2015. In his World Championships year 2010 he won his first Grand Slam in Rio. In 2014 he won the Grand Prix in Düsseldorf.

Hiroyuki Akimoto claimed the Junior world title in 2004 in Budapest. He fought U66kg in that time and had some international events in Europe. In February 2005 at the age of 19 everyone knew the young Akimoto who won the Tournoi de Paris. Although Olympic Champion Uchishiba was still Japan’s number one, Akimoto’s star was rising fast and he won the Kano Cup one year later. Bercy was one of his favourite venues as he won the tournament three times in 2005, 2007 and 2015 and took three other medals, even this year when he took bronze U73kg. He switched to this category in 2009.

Akimoto had many competitors in Japan such as Shohei Ono, Riki Nakaya, Yasuhiro Awano and international he fought more than 150 matches at top level. Even international, his most frequent opponent was Riki Nakaya with a positive balance for Akimoto, 3-2. Also Navruz Jurakobilov (UZB), Dirk van Tichelt (BEL), Attila Ungvari (HUN) and Nugzari Tatalashvili (GEO) were frequent opponents.

In the major finals he fought judoka such as Dex Elmont in the World Champions final, Wang Ki-Chun, Mansur Isaev, Rustam Orujov and current World number one An Chang-Rim.

Today, at the first day 1 of the All Japan team championships (Business man category) Akimoto fought as a member of his team, Ryotokuji-Gakuen. He marks 5 ippons in his 5 contests, though this is free-weight event.