To Our Friends in Wrestling Around the world

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

By William May
（Japan Amateur Wrestling Federation, Public Information Committee
：wmay52@hotmail.com）

JAPANESE FS, GR TEAMS SELECTED FOR WINTER TOURS




　　TOKYO (February 4) - The Japan Wrestling Federation announced its freestyle and greco-roman squads for their annual winter tour of Europe. The national team committee of the JWF, meanwhile, decided to leave its heavier wrestlers at home in order to prepare for the Asian championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan in April.

　　The greco-roman team is scheduled to compete in the Poland Open in Chelm on March 11-12 and then move to Bulgaria for the Nikola Petro International Golden Grand Prix event in Sofia the following week. The freestyle team, meanwhile, will wrestle in the Independence Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, March 10-12, and then will train in Bulgaria before the March 25-26 Dan Kolov International in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

　　In a related development, national champion Tsukasa Sato was originally scheduled to make the freestyle trip at 66 kg for Japan, but the Waseda University student had to withdraw because of an injury. All-Japan runner-up Kohei Fujimoto will make the European tour instead while third-ranked Takafumi Kojima is tabbed for the April 6-9 Asian championships.

Rosters for the European tours:

Greco-roman
55 kg - Masatoshi Toyota (Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department), Kohei Hasegawa (Aoyama Gakuin University)
60 kg - Makoto Sasamoto (ALSOK Sogo Keibi Hosho)
66 kg - Masaki Imuro (Japan Self Defense Forces)
74 kg - Tsukasa Tsurumaki (Kokushikan University)
84 kg - Shingo Matsumoto (Ichimiya Transport)
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Freestyle
55 kg - Tomohiro Matsunaga (ALSOK), Yasuhiro Inaba (Senshu University), Hideki Taoka (Japan SDF)
60 kg - Kenichi Yumoto (Nippon Sports Science University), Noriyuki Takatsuka (Nihon University)
66 kg - Kohei Fujimoto (Takushoku University)
74 kg - Kunihiko Obata (ALSOK), Kazuyuki Nagashima (Clean-up)

JAPAN TO SEND 3 WORLD CHAMPS TO ASIAN C'HIPS


　　TOKYO (February 6) - The Japan Wrestling Federation has announced that it plans to send three reigning and former world champions to the Asian wrestling championships in Kazakhstan in April.

　　The Japanese delegation for the championships in Almaty, April 6-9, will include four-time former world champion Seiko Yamamoto at 59 kg, Ayako Shoda (the reigning world champ at 59 kg) at 63 kg and five-time champion Kyoko Hamaguchi at 72 kg.

　　The men's freestyle and greco-roman teams, meanwhile, will be filled out with the second- and third-ranked wrestlers in Japan, since a number of national champions will compete on winter tours in Europe in March.

Men's freestyle
55 kg - Masashi Saito (Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department)
60 kg - Shinichi Inoue (Tokyo MPD)
66 kg - Takafumi Kojima (Nippon Sports Science University)
74 kg - Kosuke Kato (NSSU, coach)
84 kg - Yutaka Suzuki (Japan Self Defense Forces)
96 kg - Kiyotaka Kodaira (Tokyo MPD)
120 kg - Akihito Tanaka (FEG)

Men's greco-roman
55 kg - Shingo Hirai (ALSOK Sogo Keibi Hosho)
60 kg - Hideo Kitaoka (NSSU)
66 kg - Yutaka Fujimura (Japan SDF)
74 kg - Taichi Suga (Tokyo MPD)
84 kg - Shinobu Komukai (Japan SDF)
96 kg - Kenzo Kato (Japan SDF)
120 kg - no entry

Women's freestyle
48 kg - Yuri Funatsu (Toyo University)
51 kg - Nanae Suzuki (Waseda University)
55 kg - Chikako Matsukawa (Nihon University)
59 kg - Seiko Yamamoto (Japan Beverage)
63 kg - Ayako Shoda (Japan Beverage)
67 kg - Mimi Sugawara (Tokyo MPD)
72 kg - Kyoko Hamaguchi (Japan Beverage)

HAMAGUCHI NAMED HEAD COACH FOR WOMEN'S SQUAD IN ALMATY



　　　TOKYO (February 10) - The Japan Wrestling Federation has announced that Heigo ・Animal・Hamaguchi will serve as the head coach for the Japanese women's team at the Asian championships in Kazakhstan in April.
Hamaguchi, Kyoko's father and personal coach, will replace Shigeo Kinase as head coach. Kinase will join Ryo Kanahama as one of the team's coaches.

JAPAN SENDS 21 TO KLIPPAN LADIES OPEN


　　　TOKYO (February 17) - Japan is sending 21 high school and junior high school students to Sweden for the Klippan Ladies Open, March 3-5. The cadets competition will be held March 3-4 while the combined junior-senior division will wrestle March 4-5 as the second leg of women痴 wrestling for the FILA痴 Golden Grand Prix.

　　　Last year, Aichi high school student Mio Nishimaki won the senior women痴 crown at 59 kg while Japan also got three titles in the cadet competition.

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