Saki Niizoe the coolest in Budapest U70kg

The division for women U70kg in Budapest was a roller coaster. The Puerto Rican Maria Pérez had the luxury of defeating the first seed, the Dutch Sanne Van Dijke, before being eliminated at the hands of the German Miriam Butkereit, who in turn had beaten the British Kelly Petersen-Pollard. World champion Barbara Matic was delighted, calmly advancing through the tournament until she lost to Japan's Saki Niizoe

Japan’s Saki Niizoe won her sixth IJF World Tour gold medal in style, using a mix of tachi-waza and newaza.

She opened up the accounts with an uchimata victory against Nodira Yuldasheva (UZB). With her long legs, Niizoe was able to get great elevation with the throw. So good that it became an overthrow, so only waza-ari was given. But it was enough to win her the match.

She had a harder time against the very experienced Maria Portela (BRA). Both players were at two shidos each when the inevitable uchimata happened. It was scored waza-ari but Portela couldn’t even up the scores.

Against Israel’s Maya Goshen, Niizoe relied on a pin for ippon. She did the same with World Champion Barbara Matic (CRO), a pin for ippon.

In the final, she tried to go for newaza with Miriam Butkereit (GER) but the German player proved elusive in groundwork. So, Niizoe changed tact and threw her instead, with a perfect tai-otoshi for ippon. Forty seconds was all it took Niizoe to win the fifth gold for Japan, It took longer to walk down the aisle to the tatami than to win. The German was slow to understand that a train was coming to run over her.

Matic did not walk away empty-handed, defeating Petersen-Pollard for bronze.

Pérez sent Goshen flying in a spectacular ippon-seoi-nage to take her first World Judo Tour medal since 2019.