To Our Friends in Wrestling Around the world
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

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

TAKATANI 5TH ON 1ST DAY OF FS AT JR WORLD C’SHIPS

BEIJING (August 25) - Sosuke Takatani, showing some funky and aggressive wrestling, came up short in his medal hunt at 74 kg as the freestyle competition got under way at the junior wrestling world championships. Takatani, who watched fellow Amino high school teammate Fuyuko Mimura take a silver medal the day before, rolled into the semifinals with a 6-3, 1-2, 5-1 victory over Asian junior champion Iman Mohammadian of Iran.

The 18-year-old Kyoto native, however, could not keep up with one of Russia’s top wrestling prospects in the semifinals as Denis Tsargush handed Takatani a 0-6, 0-5 loss. In a free-for-all for third place, Takatani came out on the short end of a 5-7, 5-5 decision to European junior bronze medalist Gocha Lomtatidze of Georgia.

Meanwhile, Japan’s other three entries on the first day of freestyle all lost their opening bouts and did not have a chance at the consolation brackets. Kensuke Otani, also of Amino high school lost 0-3, 1-0, 0-3 to Andrei Komar of Belarus at 50 kg, while the third Kyoto wrestler of the day Yoshizumi Yano of Ritsumeikan University was edged 0-1, 0-1 at 60 kg by European bronze medalist Dejan Mitrov of Macedonia. Kengo Kamei of Nihon Bunri University in Oita lost in three periods to India’s Parvesh Kumar, who eventually took a fifth place at 96 kg.

In the gold medal finals, Tsargush eased past European junior silver medalist Ayhan Sucu of Turkey 3-0, 5-0 at 74 kg.
But Tsargush’s Russian teammate Alen Zaseev could not put away Valerii Andriitsev of Ukraine after a 6-0 first period and fell to the reigning junior European champion 4-0, 3-0.

Russia, Turkey and Iran are tied for the lead in the team standings after the first day with 25 points each.
Ten of Iran’s points came from Mehdi Taghavi Kermani who repeated as junior world champ with a 1-0, 2-0 win over Ismail Redzhep of Bulgaria.

At 50 kg, Dashpuntsag Tulga, Mongolia capped a wild gold medal final by pinning Ohan Giginyan, Armenia at 1:53 of the third period.
Results of bouts involving Japanese entries:

Freestyle

50 kg - Kensuke Otani, Amino HS (15th, 18 entries)
R1 - bye
R2 - lost to Andrei Komar (BLR), 1-2 (0-3, 1-0, 0-3)

60 kg - Yoshizumi Yano, Ritsumeikan Univ. (26th, 32 entries)
R1 - lost to Dejan Mitrov (MKD), 0-2 (0-1, 0-1)

74 kg - Sosuke Takatani, Amino (5th, 24 entries)
R1 - bye
R2 - df. Dan Palinkas (SVK), 2-0 (2-0, 2-0)
R3 - df. Iman Mohammadian (IRI), 2-1 (6-3, 1-2, 5-1) SF - lost to Denis Tsargush (RUS), 0-2 (0-6, 0-5)
F3 - lost to Gocha Lomtatidze (GEO), 0-2 (5-7, 5-5x)

96 kg - Kengo Kamei, Nihon Bunri Univ. (13th, 21 entries)
R1 - bye
R2 - lost to Parvesh Kumar (IND), 1-2 (2-0, 1-5, 0-1)