Komei Kawabata claims the double in juniors

On day three of the 2024 Dushanbe World Championships Juniors, with Akita out early at -81 and Maeda disqualified at -70, 18 year old 2023 junior world champion Komei Kawabata was the last chance for Japan to take a medal.

The -90 kg final was then contested by Komei Kawabata (JPN) and Egor Malkin (IJF). Kawabata is a ne-waza nightmare for every opponent, on top of his powerful throwing ability. In the second exchange he came close to holding Malkin but somehow he escaped. Kawabata remained composed, ready to go again but was perhaps surprised by his opponent’s seoi-otoshi which came a couple of times before the Japanese judoka could again dominate.

With a minute left on the clock, Kawabata threw with a huge seoi-nage with just a little direction missing from the landing but the waza-ari was his and Malkin began to struggle. In the last ten seconds Kawabata completed his first mission of the match and held Malkin down for his second waza-ari and the gold medal. Japan had their 6th gold in Dushanbe but their first and only one of day 3.

The first bronze medal contest featured Henry Owusu Asare Owusu (ITA) and Alisher Samanov (UZB). It was a grappler’s delight with non-stop pick-ups, counters and rolls, from one with the advantage to the other. It was in an exchange just like that, that Samanov found the momentum and the landing needed to score ippon and take Uzbekistan’s 3rd medal of the championship.

The second bronze medal went to Vadim Ghimbovschi (MDA) after two and a half minutes of action. He caught Askar Birzhanov (KA) perfectly with an uchi-mata to ko-uchi-gari combination for ippon. This is Moldova’s first medal of the 2024 Dushanbe World Championships Juniors.

He began his day as the number one seed and did not disappoint, throwing and holding his way to the final without much disturbance. His quarter-final against Olympic champion Kotsoev ‘s (AZE) little brother, Aslan Kotsoev, was as tough as it got for him, needing to rely on his ne-waza at exactly full time.

There was an unseeded surprise in pool B in the name of Askar Birzhanov. In fact, the whole pool resembled a maze of wins and losses, none making sense on paper. Wasikowski (POL) was at the top of the oool but he lost to someone who lost to someone else who in turn lost to the Kazakh!

In pool C, Alisher Samanov was the most successful judoka of the morning. He passed Radaulj (SRB), Barbosa (BRA) and Ghimbovschi (MDA) but really struggled against Malkin (IJF) in the semi-final. Malkin had been dominant and persistent throughout his preliminary fights and he beat Samanov too to book his place in the final.