Misato Nakamura wins third World title and star status

Misato Nakamura became World Champion for women U52kg and the successor of Majlinda Kelmendi. The Japanese defeated World Ranking Leader Andreea Chitu in the final. For Chitu it was her second lost final in a row. She could have been the most successful athlete at World Championships for her country.

Now it was Misato Nakamura, the cool judoka who waited until the very last moment to defeat Erika Miranda in the last second of the semi final. Against Chitu Nakamura led by one penalty for Chitu and attacked Chitu aggressively from the beginning and paralysed her with her groundwork and stable judo. Namakura had Chitu in a hold down halfway the match but Chitu escaped. She was one penalty down which gave Nakamura the chance to get more control over the match winning time on the ground. No score for none of the two and Nakamura fought a tactical match hoisting her third world title and again silver for Chitu. A similar situation to Russian Mikhail Pulyaev in the men U66kg. The Japanese won her third World title where in 2010 she won silver behind Yuka Nishida.

Only Ryoko Tani (7) and Norika Anno (4) won more world titles.

Nakamura also passed double world champion Sharon Rendle (GBR) who was inducted into the IJF Hall of Fame last weekend. Nakamura now is the best ever judoka U52kg in world championships history. At Olympic level XIAN Dongmei won two Olympic titles.

Today Nakamura defeated many experienced judoka starting with Finnish Jaana Sundberg (32yrs), Joana Ramos (33) of Portugal and 25-year old Levytska and 26-year old Natalia Kuziutina in the quarter final. Miranda of 28 in the semi final in that dramatic last second, perhaps the longest second of the tournament.

27-Year old Darya Skrypnik stunted to a beautiful bronze medal. The girl from Belarus defeated Gulbadam Babamuratova of Turkmenistan in her last match with a huge uchimata to a left ko-uchi combination, a superb footsweep. A tremendous surprise in a thrilling second day of the World Championships and celebrated a perfect day with her coach Natik Bagirov. Erika Miranda who was tremendously disappointed in her last second loss in the semi final, made up the day with bronze and recovered herself taking at least bronze back home to the organising country of the Olympic Games. Last year Miranda won silver, but this felt the same way, she could have been there, and the bronze medal against Italian Giuffrida was an obligation to coach Campos. Both were very emotional after her match and shared the feelings.

Giuffrida came close and hold the pressure on for three minutes but the taller Miranda had the better grip from the start and could dominate in the last minute after Giuffrida got one penalty. The Italian is still the youngest with Kondo among the 32 top 8 players so far.

The average age of all historic Olympic champions U52kg is 27, Misato Nakamura is now 26.