Who are the top five uchi-mata experts

Who do you estimate are the the Top 5 Uchimata Specialists ever in judo? Oon Yeoh of JudoCrazy summarises the experts for you.

Hidehiko Yoshida: In the early 90's, he was the "Uchimata King".

Yoshida did his uchimata from a left-handed grip. His particular quirk was he would twitch a few times, threatening to enter with uchimata, before actually doing so. A single twitch from Yoshida would send shivers down the spines of his opponents. That was how dominant he was. He won both his Olympic and World titles with uchimata.

Kosei Inoue: In the early 2000s, he was the new "Uchimata King".
Many Japanese fighters are left-handed but Inoue fought right-handed. Unlike Yoshida, before him, who did basically one style of Uchimata, Inoue was capable of many different types of entries. He also had a wider range of techniques than Yoshida but his favorite was undoubtedly, Uchimata.

Shohei Ono: Throughout the 2010's, there was no one better at Uchimata.
Ono was similar to Inoue in that he was a right-hander, but also in that he did many variations of uchimata. Like Inoue, he also did many other techniques, and in fact had a wider range of techniques. He was also very good at Osoto-Gari and he did his Masters' Thesis on Osoto-Gari but he is still mostly known for his Uchimata.

Tsukasa Yoshida: There are several female Uchimata specialists but none whose uchimata was as elegant as Yoshida's. She was truly the "Uchimata Queen".
Like many Japanese, Yoshida fought left-handed. Her Uchimata was very classical and her's looked very similar to that of her namesake, the earlier Yoshida (Hidehiko). She was able to elevate her opponents high up into the air. The arc of her throws were always very impressive.

Joshiro Maruyama: Uchimata is a popular technique and many players use it. But there is no contemporary judoka whose Uchimata is admired as this player's is.

Many players do Uchimata. It's a very popular contest technique. There are also many Uchimata heroes. But none is more admired than Joshiro Maruyama. If you want to talk about elevation, nobody throws their opponent as high up into the air as Maruyama.