This time Riko Honda becomes junior world champion U57kg

Japanese middleweight Riko Honda captured the gold medal in the Kasri Tennis Arena in her weight class U57kg at day two of the Dushanbe World Championships Juniors 2024. The final, in a repeat of the -48 kg final of day one, featured Yuying Tao (CHN) and Riko Honda (JPN). However, Honda was not willing to let a repeat result stand.

At the beginning of the second minute she flew in with a dynamic left uchi-mata, barely letting the waza-ari settle before she was back on the attack. She then threw for ippon with a stunning ko-soto-gari to win her first junior world title. She adds it to a cadet world gold and a junior world silver, building an impressive CV. This is Japan’s 4th gold medal of the event.

The first bronze medal contest on the tatami was an unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate, line-up between the two Brazlians in the group. World number one Bianca Reis slipped up against her Chinese opponent in the quarter-final while Beatriz Comanche lost a round later, dropping directly into the bronze medal contest. Both fighters have shown real skills and intelligence through the preliminaries but only one could leave with a medal. Brazil could therefore guarantee an improved position on the overall medal table at the end of day two.

The deciding moment came when Reis dropped underneath Comanche with a seoi-otoshi, rewarded with a waza-ari on the scoreboard. The time then ran out and the name on Brazil’s medal was engraved.

The second bronze medal would go to either Adriana Saez Hevia (ESP) or Karolina Siennicka (POL). An enormous ippon was scored by the Polish athlete who fought confidently from the beginning of her first contest in the morning. Her soto-makikomi was delivered without hesitation; an easy ippon to score. The second bronze medal of the day goes to Poland.

At the end of day two, 7 champions crowned, 7 more still to discover, Japan have stormed into the lead on the medal table with 5 gold medals, ten medals in total.