Riko Honda captures world title U57kg for Japan

Riko Honda stole the show in Zagreb at the World Championships with a first world title for Japan's talents. Honda captured the world title U57kg. It was the third world title in history for Japan U57kg as in 2015 Ryoko Takeda won and in 2019 Rin Eguchi grabbed the world title.

At U57kg Maria Silveira (POR) has had an incredible year, winning gold in Fuengirola, Teplice, Coimbra and at the Europeans in June. At EYOF she fell but not far, settling for bronze. In Zagreb Silveira began well, applying her usual pace and style to knock Golubic (CRO) and Allaberganova (UZB) out completely. In the quarter-final she met totally unknown Japanese opposition in the form of Riko Honda. Honda completely turned the tables on the Portuguese athlete and out-paced her, eventually winning on penalties.

Silveira made light work of Cancela (USA) in the repechage to jump into the bronze fight against Zholdosheva (KGZ), a competitor whom had sprung from nowhere to pass her Turkish, French and Uzbek opposition before losing a close and tense semi-final against Lin of Taipei.

Silveira continued to dominate, determined to show she would not accept leaving Zagreb without a medal. She threw Zholosheva (KGZ) immediately after ‘hajime’ and held her down for the second waza-ari. The first bronze of the day went to Portugal.

The second medal contest was fought between number 4 in the world Aralbaeva (UZB) and number 7 in the world Zakroisky (ISR). The Uzbek took an early lead and then changed nothing in her energy, direction or pace, allowing the Israeli no space at all to build her own offence. However, perhaps due to high confidence, Aralbaeva made mistakes, two of them, both capitalised on by the Israeli who countered once and then again for two scores and a bronze medal. It was a win against the tide and showed how important it is to fight until the last second, no score is insurmountable.

The final between Honda and Lin began with the Japanese dominating the sleeve and with just over a minute gone she attacked with a strong o-uchi-gari and scored ippon. The first gold of the day was Japan’s.