Ryoma Tanaka sets career highlight at Budapest masters

In the final of the men’s U66kg of the Masters in Budapest Denis Vieru faced Ryoma Tanaka (JPN) in a match that promised to be thrilling, with two judoka of refined styles. Fans were not disappointed even if we would have loved to see more of this final. After a powerful o-soto-gari, in the air Tanaka changed direction to throw Vieru flat on his back. This is the kind of judo we would have been happy to see again and again, but ippon being ippon, the fight was over and the gold medal went to Ryoma Tanaka.

The last few months have been complicated for technician Denis Vieru. 2023 didn't seem like his year until today. It was not his bronze medal in Paris in February, the first and only of the season, which could satisfy him.

Despite everything, Vieru arrived in Budapest as world number one, which gave him some confidence. It is in adversity that we recognise the great champions. It's a safe bet that many predicted a complicated path at the Masters for him, if at least he couldn't transcend the doubt that must have settled in his mind.

Erkhembayar Battogtokh (MGL) and Baul An (KOR) fought for a first bronze medal and were pretty even from the get-go, each taking a shido early for holding back their sleeve in the gripping battle. A couple of shido later and 2:25 into golden score, An Baul eventually manage to pull out an uchi-mata for ippon. The bronze medal was for the Korean judoka.

Narmandakh Bayanmunkh (UAE) and Iadov Bogdan (UKR) faced off for the second bronze medal. What an uchi-mata that was from Narmandakh Bayanmunkh, who scored an ippon a little more than half way to the end.

Spotlight:

Japanese judoka Ryoma Tanaka captured the gold medal at the Grand Slam in Paris in 2021 and this time a sensational gold medal at the Masters. You can say he is Japan’s number three behind Abe and Maruyama, and still good enough to win precious medals.

We know Tanaka as he also captured a bronze medal at the Grand Slam in Baku in 2021 and bronze in Paris in 2022 one year later. He claimed a bronze medal at the Grand Slam in Tbilisi in 2022 and he secured a silver medal at the Asian Championships in 2022. In Budapest he had his career highlight.