<Judo: World Championship> ◇ 6th ◇ 4th day ◇ Tashkent ◇ Women’s 63 kg class
Megumi Horikawa (26 = Park 24) won the championship for the first time. In the final, she defeated a Canadian player by ippon with Uchimata. In the Japanese women’s competition, she won the third gold medal following Natsumi Tsunoda in the 48-kg class and Uta Abe in the 52-kg class.
In the second round of the first match, he defeated an Italian player in the big outside, and in the semi-finals, he defeated a Portuguese player with a horizontal and four-sided solid. In the end, she defeated the difficult opponent Catherine Beauschmannpinard, who had won the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics (Olympics) last summer, with her signature technique just before the end of the match.
Born in Matsumoto, Nagano, his maiden name is Tsugane. He won the Grand Slam (GS) Tokyo at the youngest age of 17 years and 1 month when he was in the second year of Matsusho Gakuen High School. He was expected to be a future gold medalist candidate, but he did not reach Rio de Janeiro four years later or Tokyo nine years later. After entering the University of Tsukuba, he struggled to grow due to changes in the environment, and there were times when he was unable to win even in domestic tournaments, losing the first round.
After that, it is described as “endured”. Even if he didn’t win the international tournament, he held on at the level of an all-Japan strengthened player, and in his final four years, he won the All-Japan selection by weight category for the first time. However, I was blocked by a wall again. Given that the 63-kg class hadn’t achieved results in the world for a long time, I was moved to tears by the unexpected decision to “not send” only the same class to the world championship that year.
“I wondered why, and I couldn’t accept it right away, but I couldn’t win the GS after that, so I guess it was appropriate.”
Joined Park 24, a corporate group that had already been unofficially decided, and married her husband, a judo player belonging to the Metropolitan Police Department, in July 2020, in her third year as a member of society. She took her current surname, which was also a turning point. At her home, she helps out with her film research. Her results began to improve because of her mental and physical fulfillment.
At the Tel Aviv tournament in February this year, he won the GS for the first time in nine years and two months. “When I was in the second year of high school, I felt that I was more powerful than my ability. Now the feeling is different. It’s the timing when my feelings have caught up with my ability.” It also matched her first world queen.
He will celebrate his 27th birthday on the 18th of this month. Before he left Japan, he said, “I’m not young enough, but I hope I can make use of my experience so far and play a calm game at my own pace, rather than momentum.”
The coach’s father and other relatives also watched the game on site. “Everyone was cheering me on and sent me off, saying, ‘I won by myself and stood on this stage, so I want you to be confident and proud.’ It seemed like it was going to be hard,” he waved to the worried family members in the audience, and returned the favor with a smile and the best brilliance.
In this class, I admired Ayumi Tanimoto, who won the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2008 Beijing Olympics for the second time in a row, and has been polishing my inner thighs since junior high school. As in the semi-finals, she widened her groundwork, but with 1 second left, she moved without thinking. She flipped brightly on her inner thigh from a sharp step.
For the Japanese team, it is the first victory in 12 years (9 tournaments) since Nobue Ueno in 2010. From the humiliation of her absence to the reinstatement of her country, she advanced to her goal of the 2024 Paris Olympics.[Jun Kinoshita]
