Khasan Khalmurzaev Judo World Ranking leader U81kg

The World Ranking has changed quite a bit due to the reduced points gained at the 2015 and 2014 World Championships. Athletes such as Yeldos Smetov and Yuri Alvear who benefit of their Olympic performances in combination with the performances at World Championships, lost points again, but will obviously still be in the top of their divisions.

Kazakh Yeldos Smetov was world ranking leader U60kg but lost his spot this week to Kim Won-Jin of Korea who’s back at his usual leading position, followed by Orkhan Safarov now number two, Smetov the ranked three. Olympic Champion Mudranov is now seven, last week four.

U66kg Fabio Basile is now three swopping with Mikhail Pulyaev who took silver at the Worlds in 2015 but saw his points reduced by 50%. An Ba-Ul is still leading clearly.

Rustam Orujov kept his leading place U73kg. Taipei winner Soichi Hashimoto gained more points and sneaked into the top 5, two places behind Olympic champion Shohei Ono.

Khasan Khalmurzaev didn’t have medals at World Championships yet and he took over the position of World Champion Nagase U81kg. Khalmurzaev is the first Russian leader since Pulyaev in May 2016. Pulyaev was the only Russian World Ranking leader since Galstyan in 2013 U60kg. Nagase is now second, Travis Stevens third, Tchrikishvili fourth.

No changes in the top 90 three U90kg lead by Mashu Baker. Lukas Krpalek who was world champion in 2014 saw those points removed and is now number three behind Gasimov and Maret U100kg. The top 8 +100kg is the same as the previous release of the IJF Ranking.

Urantsetseg Munkhbat is the new leader U48kg. She switched with 2015 World Champion Paula Pareto who was last week’s leader. Also Galbadrakh (3) and Kondo (4) switched U48kg.

Majlinda Kelmendi didn’t participate at the 2015 World Championships and in fact increased the gap with the rest U52kg. The same applies to Sumiya Dorjsuren who saw Matsumoto losing her 2015 points and is stonily leading U57kg. Kim and Silva follow.

The favourites U63kg for the Olympic title did what they had to do in Rio. No changes in the top 5. U70kg Kim Polling is back to her usual world leading position despite a week absence as Alvear had both her points of Rio and Astana in her pocket. Laura Vargas Koch is still second, Haruka Tachimoto is approaching, now at 3.

No major changes U78kg with Kayla Harrison at the top. Ortiz and Yu are still the leaders +78 with Andeol comfortably at 3.

Next week the European Open won’t give huge changes, in three weeks time the IJF Grand Prix in Zagreb may correct some positions.