Wakana Koga harvests the gold for Japan

The first representative of the Japanese team to enter the tatami in a final at the junior world championships 2019 in Marrakech, was not a total unknown on the World Judo Tour, since Koga Wakana won the Montreal Grand Prix at the beginning of July, at only 18 years old. In the final, she met French Shirine Boukli, silver medalist at the last European Junior Championships.

The Frenchwoman was quickly seeking physical contact by coming to seize far in the back of her opponent. But, although dangerous, she was penalized with a first shido for gripping the belt, before being nailed twice on the ground, once on ko-uchi-gari and once on o-uchi-gari, for two waza-ari. Koga Wakana harvested the first gold medal of the week for Japan.

The first bronze medal of this first day of competition was between Jon Su Song (PRK) and the bronze medalist of the 2015 World Cadet Championships, Turkish Tugce Beder. After having received three penalties, Beder was disqualified offering the first medal of the competition to Jon Su Song.

In the second bronze medal contest, the second Japanese athlete of the category Watanabe Aiko (JPN) faced the already bronze medallist of last year's edition of the event, Andrea Stojadinov (SRB). The opposition of style was quickly visible in a match between the left-handed Watanabe, a tai-otoshi specialist and the Serb, right-handed and ready to counter at any time. That is exactly what happened when Stojadinov overpassed one of Watanabe's attacks to score a superb yoko-guruma for Ippon and the bronze medal.