To Our Friends in Wrestling Around the world

                    

By William May
(Japan Amateur Wrestling Federation, Public Information Committee
Kyodo World Services, senior sports writer:wmay52@hotmail.com


HAMAGUCHI NAMED JOC FLAG BEARER FOR ATHENS



  TOKYO (June 24) - Five-time world champion Kyoko Hamaguchi will carry the flag for the Japanese delegation at the opening ceremony of this summer’s Olympic Games in Athens. Hamaguchi, 26, one of the favorites for a gold medal in women’s wrestling, was selected the Japanese flag bearer for the Athens Games by the Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) at their Executive Board meeting on June 24.

  “I feel a sense of destiny (that Kyoko) will be the flag bearer at an Olympic Games that is sure to be memorable,” Kyoko’s father and coach, Heigo “Animal” Hamaguchi told reporters. “To be the flag bearer will put Kyoko on top of a rising mood (of enthusiasm) and we hope this will carry her all the way to winning the gold medal,” the former pro wrestler added.

With Hamaguchi named the flag bearer for the Japanese delegation, the Japan Wrestling Federation revised its schedule for its female wrestlers. The JWF had originally planned that the women would continue training in Japan and skip the opening ceremony on August 13. The Japanese women, however, will now leave Japan on August 6 and train in Athens until the women’s wrestling event on August 22-23.

HAMAGUCHI ON OLYMPIC COMMEMORATIVE STAMP


  TOKYO (June 23) - The Japanese Olympic Committee and Japan’s public corporation in charge of post offices unveiled a series of stamps that include pictures of Kyoko Hamaguchi and four other gold medal hopefuls in Athens.

  Along with Hamaguchi are hammer thrower Koji Murofushi, marathon runner Mizuki Noguchi, judoka Kosei Inoue and swimmer Kosuke Kitajima. It is the first time in Japan that the commemorative stamps have used images of the Olympic athletes. On previous occasions the stamps have featured Olympic illustrations or the Olympic mascots.

   A sheet of ten 80-yen stamps will cost 2,625 yen with part of the money to be used by the JOC for its athletic development fund. The JOC is hoping to sell 100,000 sets of the stamps, which give the JOC about 40 million yen to use for the development of Japan’s Olympic medal hopefuls.

JWF NAMES COACHES, OFFICIALS FOR ATHENS


  TOKYO (JUNE 27) - The Japan Wrestling Federation has named its coaches and officials for next month’s Olympic Games in Athens.

Members of the official delegation:
Men

Head coach - Hideaki Tomiyama
Freestyle coaches - Masakazu Hijikata, Takahiro Wada
Greco-roman coaches - Hiromichi Ito, Hiroshi Kado

Women
Head coach - Akira Suzuki
Coaches - Kazuhito Sakae, Shigeo Kinase, Ryo Kanahama

Trainer
Yasuyuki Sasaki

Referees
Yoshimitsu Naito, Koji Fukuda

Extra coaches (not included in the official delegation)
Greco-roman head coach - Atsushi Miyahara
Freestyle coaches - Hiroyuki Obata, Takumi Adachi, Hajime Wakui, Mitsuru Sato

Women’s coach - Kazuko Oshima

Special greco-roman coach - Yuji Nagata
Special women’s coach - Heigo Hamaguchi

JWF CONFIRMS SCHEDULE, INCENTIVES FOR OLYMPIANS


  TOKYO (June 27) - The Japan Wrestling Federation has confirmed that Japan’s freestyle and greco-roman wrestlers will leave for Athens on August 9 and take part in the opening ceremonies on August 13. The men will then spend a week in Budapest to prepare for the greco-roman competition August 24-26 and freestyle events August 27-29. The JWF also confirmed that any of its wrestlers winning a gold medal in Athens will be rewarded with its own gold medal worth 1 million yen.

  The gold medal winners will also receive travel tickets worth 1 million yen along with 2.5 million yen in a monetary reward with the money coming from a variety of sponsors.
The silver and bronze medalists will receive 1.7 million and 1.1 million yen respectively.

AKAISHI COACHING AFGHAN WRESTLERS IN ATHENS


  TOKYO (June 4) - Two-time Olympic medalist Kosei Akaishi departed for the Greek island of Lesvos where he will join the wrestlers from Afghanistan as their coach for the Olympic Games in Athens. Akaishi previously served as a coach for Afghanistan in 2002 when he spent two months with the wrestlers in the capital city of Kabul prior to the Asian Games in Pusan, Korea.

  Afghanistan failed to win a berth in the Athens Games through the qualification process, but received a wild card berth in freestyle from FILA. Akaishi was approached to serve as coach again in Athens.

TAKADA NAMED TO FILA’S WRESTLING HALL OF FAME


  TOKYO (JUNE 22) - Yuji Takada, 1976 Olympic champion and widely considered one of wrestling’s all-time great technicians, will be inducted to wrestling’s international hall of fame, world governing body FILA has announce. Takada will receive his award at a party following the FILA Congress meeting in Athens on August 20.

  The international wrestling hall of fame, which was created last year, is located in Stillwater, Oklahoma along with the U.S. wrestling hall of fame. Takada, who also won four world championship titles, is the first Japanese wrestler to be selected for induction into the hall.

TANABE DEFEATS ABDULLAEV TO WIN AT GERMAN FS GRAND PRIX


  LEIPZIG, Germany (June 12-13) - Tokyo police officer Chikara Tanabe fashioned a 5-0 victory over Sydney Olympic champion Namik Abdullaev and won the 55-kg title at the German freestyle grand prix tournament. Tanabe, effective in par terre in all of his matches, opened the scoring by converting in par terre with an ankle lace.

  He later then pried Abdullaev of Azerbaijan over with a leg grape vine on his way to his second championship of the Japanese team’s tour of Asia. Meanwhile, world bronze medalist Kazuhiko Ikematsu was runner-up at 66 kg for a second week in a row as he fell 4-1 to Elman Asgarov of Azerbaijan.

  Kenji Inoue (60 kg) and Kunihiko Obata (74) also collected silver medals while veteran Hidekazu Yokoyama (84) struggled with a pair of losses in the preliminary rounds.

TANABE LEADS JAPAN TO 4 GOLD IN MACEDONIA INT’L


  SKOPJE, Macedonia (June 5-6) - Chikara Tanabe led a parade of three Japanese to the top of the medals podium at the Pearl of Macedonia international wrestling competition.
Tanabe scored a pair of wins by technical fall and rolled 10-1 over Krasmir Krstanov of Bulgaria for the title at 55 kg.

  Kunihiko Obata pinned Kemeridis Theoharis of Greece for the title at 74 kg and Hidekazu Yokoyama eased his way to three wins in a four-man round-robin for the gold medal at 84 kg. Kazuhiko Ikematsu, however, fell to local favorite Franezi Lialjzim 8-6 in the final at 66 kg.

  Japan’s fifth Olympic entry in freestyle, Kenji Inoue, sat out the Macedonia meet with an injury.

NAGATA 4TH, MATSUMOTO 5TH IN HUNGARY


  SZOMBATHELY, Hungary (June 26-27) - Katsuhiko Nagata’s final tune-up for the Athens Olympics was a trip down memory lane as he faced a pair of fellow Sydney Olympians on the final day of the Hungarian greco-roman grand prix.

  Unfortunately for Nagata, both encounters resulted in losses as the Sydney silver medalist had to settled for fourth place. Nagata fell to former world and European runner-up Csaba Hirbik of Hungary 3-0 in the semifinals at 74 kg. Hirbik was 15th in Sydney at 69 kg. Nagata then faced two-time Olympic gold medalist Filiberto Azcuy, the same opponent he faced in the 69-kg finals in Sydney, for the bronze medal. While he was able, in part, to limit the damage from the Cuban’s lift, Nagata still lost 6-0 and took fourth place.

  Meanwhile, Shingo Matsumoto opened with a 4-2 win over Sydney silver medalist Sandor Bardosi of Hungary at 84 kg, but had to settle for fifth place after a hard-fought 3-2 loss to Hungary’s up-and-coming Balasz Kiss. Makoto Sasamoto lost 5-4 to 2000 European champion Istvan Majoros of Hungary in his opening match and could only manage to finish 11th at 60 kg.

  Masatoshi Toyota injured his ribs in practice earlier in the week and sat out the competition at 55 kg.

MATSUMOTO 4TH IN GERMAN GR GRAND PRIX


  DORTMUND, Germany (June 19-20) - Asian Games champion Shingo Matsumoto downed a reigning European title holder on his way to a fourth-place finish in the German grand prix of greco-roman wrestling. Matsumoto stopped Nazmi Avluca of Turkey 3-1 to kick off his campaign at 84 kg.

  The burly grappler from Kochi, however, ran into Russia’s Alexej Michin in the semifinals and was thrown with a reverse waistlock and lift in a 7-0 loss. In the match for third place, Matsumoto fell behind early to Sergey Solokij of Ukraine and could not find the handle in par terre as he lost 3-0.

  Meanwhile, Makoto Sasamoto dropped a 7-5 decision to former world champion Dilshod Aripov of Uzbekistan after a seesaw encounter in the preliminaries at 60 kg.

NAGASHIMA WINS BRONZE IN STUDENT WORLDS FS


  LODZ, Poland (June 3-4) - Waseda University graduate Kazuyuki Nagashima upset defending champion Fahrettin Ozata of Turkey to win the 74-kg bronze medal at the world university freestyle wrestling championships. Nagashima scored a pair of points from the down position in par terre to take the early lead against Ozata who won the 74-kg title in the previous championships two years ago in Canada.

  Ozata tied the score midway through the second period at Sports Hall Parkowa, but Nagashima sealed the victory with a headlock from the clinch position. Nagashima, who finished sixth in Canada, matched the bronze medal won by his twin brother, Masayuki, at 66 kg in 2002.

  Seshito Shimizu, a graduate of Nippon Sports Science University, injured his knee in the semifinals and was forced to settle for fourth place at 55 kg after forfeiting the bronze medal match.

  Japan finished third in the team standings with 32 points after Iran, which had five champions and 68 points, and Belarus with two gold medalists and 36 points.

SERA, SHODA GOLDEN IN WOMEN’S STUDENT C’SHIPS


  LODZ, Poland (June 4-5) - Momoko Sera and Ayako Shoda claimed a pair of gold medals for Japan at the women’s world university wrestling championships, but the defending team champion had to settle for second behind host Poland. Sera of Fukuoka University defeated local favorite Iwona Sadowska 4-2 in the final at 48 kg while Toyo’s Shoda rolled to a technical fall win over Helen Hennick of Canada in the 63-kg title bout.

  Yu Sekine added a bronze medal for Japan with two wins and two losses in the round robin competition between five wrestlers at 55 kg. The two gold medals and a bronze, however, were a disappointment for Japanese wrestling fans since Japan won four weight categories and took third in a fifth at the championships two years ago in Canada.

  Japan finished finished second in the team standings with 50 points behind host Poland which racked up 57 points with one champion and three runners-up.

SAWADA 6TH JAPAN IN STUDENT GR WORLDS


  LODZ, Poland (June 5-6) - Takushoku University heavyweight Naoki Sawada grabbed a sixth place for Japan’s best finish of the two-day greco-roman wrestling world university championships. Sawada posted a pair of wins against one loss in his preliminary pool, but lost both repechage matches to settle for sixth.

  Turkey won the team championship with 54 points, followed by Iran (46) and Poland (43). Japan was 10th with 16 points.