Former world champion Cho Gu-ham announces retirement

Olympic silver medalist judoka Cho Gu-ham announced that he is retiring. The 2018 World Champion U100kg and silver medallist in the men’s U100kg class at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, announced his goodbye in a social media post and will now focus on becoming a good coach.

Rumors that Cho could retire have been circulating among judokas since the start of the year as he has been struggling with a knee injury for years. 

That injury appeared to be exacerbated during the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics last year, leaving Cho to focus solely on rehabilitation after the Games. He dropped out of the national team this year.

Cho took silver in Tokyo after a grueling fight against Aaron Wolf of Japan that saw the pair push the bout into 9 minutes and 35 seconds of golden score time, the longest fight at the Tokyo Games.

Both judoka picked up two penalties in normal time, but were so evenly matched that for over 10 minutes of fighting, neither could break through. Ultimately it was an ippon from Wolf that won the day, taking Cho down to end the war of attrition as the two visibly exhausted judokas struggled to find the strength to break through.

Cho’s good sportsmanship drew attention after the fight, as he stopped to celebrate his opponent’s success despite being visibly upset at having just missed out on winning the gold medal himself. That, along with his generally cheery demeanor, earned Cho a reputation as the gentleman of judo.

While the Tokyo Olympics may have raised Cho’s profile outside of the judo world, he was already well-known in the sport as a formidable judoka.

He retires with one Olympic silver medal, one World Championship gold medal, one silver and two bronze Continental Championship medals, seven gold World Tour medals including four Grand Prix and three Grand Slam titles and 17 medals in the IJF World Judo Tour in total.