Deguchi back on her golden throne for Canada

What a surprising day again at the third day in Doha’s World Judo Championships. Canada celebrated a world title again, this time it was Christa Deguchi who regained the world title in a final against Haruka Funakubo who took a silver medal again like last year against Rafaela Silva. A prolific day for Canada with Jessica Klimkait who won bronze for the second year in a row.

In the final, Deguchi gave Funakubo no chance to do her judo and stunned the Japanese with two  phenomenal off-the-grip attacks; first with a hopping o-uchi-gari inside the first minute, before hurling her opponent through the air with a cross-grip ashi-guruma in the second. Funakubo didn’t know what had hit her. Deguchi claimed a thoroughly-deserved second world title, 4 years after her first and did it in style.

The first bronze medal contest was fought between Huh and Lkhagvatogoo and both players struggled to break down the other’s defences, with very few throwing attempts coming close to scoring. The fight was decided by the slightest of mistakes from Huh; an illegal grip break caused her to be penalised for a third time, handing Lkhagvatogoo her second world bronze medal in as many years.

The other bronze was contested by Klimkait and Bozkurt, and unfortunately for the Turk, there was no fairy-tale ending to her already magnificent day. Klimkait’s experience showed and she quickly dropped underneath with her notorious seoi-nage to score waza-ari, before holding in kesa-gatame for ippon and joining Lkhagvatogoo in earning her second world bronze medal in 2 years. Bozkurt must still celebrate a career-best result; the 22-year-old clearly has a bright future ahead of her.

Rio 2016 Olympic champion Rafaela Silva surprised the judo world back in October at the Tashkent World Championships, where she demolished the U57kg field to win her second world title, nearly 10 years after her first win in Rio in 2013. She followed this up with a silver medal at the Portugal Grand Prix and gold at the Antalya Grand Slam, so looked in a strong position to defend that world title in Doha. But Hasret Bozkurt (TUR), ranked a distant 61 in the world, had other ideas.

The Turkish fighter ended Silva’s title defence in just 90 seconds. In the first exchange Bozkurt threw with o-uchi-gari for waza-ari and from then her intentions and abilities were clear. She finished the job with a powerful one-sided o-soto-gari, leaving Silva aghast.

Silva was one of two people to have beaten Christa Deguchi (CAN) in 2023, the other being Deguchi’s compatriot Jessica Klimkait, the current Olympic bronze medallist who went to those Games ahead of Deguchi. This event would likely decide who out of Klimkait and Deguchi would fight for Canada at the next Olympic Games in Paris and with Klimkait losing out in her quarter-final to Mongolia’s Enkhriilen Lkhagvatogoo, Deguchi’s path to the final and to the Olympic spot opened up and she deftly threw her way past each of her opponents to get there.

In round 2, she defeated Pardayeva (TKM) with a powerful one-handed o-soto-gari, which she followed in ne-waza with ura-gatame to score a second time. She faced a much stiffer test in round 3 in the form of world silver and bronze medallist Smythe-Davis (GBR) and as the end of the 4 minutes approached, the Canadian already had two shidos on the board and it looked like the 3rd might be imminent, but with 3 seconds left on the clock, Deguchi fired in another rapid one-sided o-soto-gari to score ippon.

In the quarter-final was Olympic silver medallist Sarah Leonie Cysique (FRA) and Deguchi extended her winning record over Cysique to 4-1, with two low o-uchi-garis, each scoring waza-ari. Awaiting in the semi-final was last year’s world bronze medallist Lkhagvatagoo, who had previously out-attacked Klimkait and Nelson Levy (ISR) to win through. Deguchi was unfazed, throwing immediately with de-ashi-barai and later the same o-uchi-gari as earlier. Her desire to score ippon rather than take tactical victories set her apart from the rest of the field.

In the upper half of the draw, Haruka Funakubo (JPN) was similarly impregnable and as usual her ne-waza was her weapon of choice. She had tactical victories over Galitskaia (AIN) in round 2 and Huh (KOR) in the quarter-final, complementing osae-komi victories over Kajzer (SLO) in round 3 and surprise package Bozkurt in the semi-final. Not content with defeating one Olympic champion in Silva, Bozkurt slammed the Tokyo 2021 champion Gjakova with a huge ura-nage to set up that semi-final, but it was over before it had begun; Funakubo avoided a yoko-otoshi attempt from the Turk to land directly in yoko-shiho-gatame and win in under a minute.