▼Previous page
By William May
（Japan Amateur Wrestling Federation, Public Information Committee：wmay52@hotmail.com）
SHIDOCHI, INOUE NAMED TO WOMEN'S WORLD TEAM FOR ISTANBUL
TOKYO (June 25) – Nineteen-year-old newcomer Mareka Shidochi and Asia champion Yoshiko Inoue were named to the Japanese women's squad for the world championships in Istanbul this fall.
Shidochi, winner of the Junior Queens Cup crown in April, will make her
senior national team debut at 51kg in September after an initiation to
international competition at the junior world championships in July.
Inoue, meanwhile, will be making her third trip to the world championships
at 67kg and her first since finishing fifth at the world meet in 2009.
Although finishing second at the all-Japan invitational, Inoue was selected
ahead winner Sara Dosho on the strength of her performance in training
camps and her triumph at the Asia championships in May.
JWF PRES. FUKUDA RE-ELECTED JOC VEEP
TOKYO (June 29) – Japan Wrestling Federation president Tomiaki Fukuda was
re-elected as a vice president of the Japanese Olympic Committee and retains
his position as chairman of the JOC's national training center commission.
At a meeting of the JOC Executive Board, JOC president Tsunekazu Takeda
was re-elected to the JOC's top post while JOC secretary general Noriyuki
Ichihara became the JOC's third vice president and will hold both positions
concurrently.
Ichihara joins Fukuda and corporate executive Masato Mizuno as JOC vice president.
Haruki Uemura was re-elected chairman of the JOC Sports Committee which
oversees the development of Japan's Olympic athletes while the first female
judo world champion for Japan Kaori Yamaguchi became the newly elected
chairwoman of the Women and Sports Commission.
YOSHIDA RECEIVES JOC SPORTS PRIZE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR FOR FY 2010
TOKYO (June 12) – Reigning world and Olympic champion Saori Yoshida received
the Japanese Olympic Committee's athlete of the year award for fiscal 2010
at ceremonies in Tokyo.
Yoshida won her eighth straight world championship crown in 2010 and will
aiming for No. 9 at the world meet in Istanbul in September. Istanbul will
also serve as the first round of qualification for next year's Olympic
Games in London, where Yoshida will target a third straight gold medal.
Yoshida is the first wrestler to receive the “most outstanding” JOC prize as athlete of the year, although she has been recognized with the “outstanding” award in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
The JOC awards recognize the top athletes and coaches of the JOC-affiliated
sports federations for outstanding results achieved during the previous
year.
Winners of the “outstanding JOC” award included shooting world champion
Tomoyuki Matsuda, the first athlete to qualify for Japan's 2012 Olympic
team, two-time men's gymnastics all-around world champion Kohei Uchimura,
and women's double judo world champion Mika Sugimoto.
Sprinter Shota Iizuka, Japan's first-ever gold medalist at the junior athletics world championships in the men's 200 meters, was presented the JOC newcomers award.
KITAMURA BANNED 2 YEARS AFTER POSITIVE DOPING TEST
TOKYO (June 13) – National greco-roman team regular Katsuya Kitamura has
been handed a two-year ban from competition after testing for positive
for a prohibited substance at the men's national invitational tournament
and world team trials in April.
Kitamura had apparently qualified for his third straight world team at
96kg in April, but then tested positive in a doping control test after
the competition. The Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA) ran the second test
and confirmed the result on May 17.
JADA notified the Japan Wrestling Federation, which struck Kitamura's invitational
results from the record and handed the wrestler a two-year ban beginning
on May 17.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has also notified the international wrestling federation (FILA) of the positive test results with wrestling's world governing body expected to place a similar two-year ban on Kitamura.
Kitamura tested positive for drostanolone, an anabolic steroid which can
be found in some nutritional supplements. It was not clear whether or not
Kitamura had been taking any dietary supplements.
According to an Internet website, drostanolone is used by some athletes
in sports with weight categories since it helps an athlete maintain strength
while losing weight.
At the JWF press conference, executive director Yuji Takada apologized for the incident, adding that national team wrestlers would be required to attend a seminar on doping at the national team training camps in Tokyo in the last half of June.
A special wrestle-off for Kitamura's vacated slot on the world team will
be held July 13 between invitational runner-up Takahiro Mori and Yuji Yamamoto,
a fifth-place finisher at the Asian championships in May.
JAPAN TO SEND 11 WRESTLERS TO GGP FINAL IN BAKU
TOKYO (June 21) – The Japan Wrestling Federation will send 11 wrestlers
to the FILA Golden Grand Prix Final, wrestling's biggest prize money event,
to be held in Baku on July 8-11.
Japan will send three wrestlers in men's freestyle, two in greco-roman
and six in women's freestyle.
The JWF had originally planned to send world team member Shinichi Yumoto
to compete at 55kg in men's freestyle, but he will be replaced because
of some niggling injuries by student champion Mamoru Handa of Senshu University.
Handa joins Waseda University standouts Tomotsugu Ishida (60kg) and Kotaro Tanaka (66kg) on the men's freestyle squad. Ishida won the world university crown last year while Tanaka was a runner-up at the junior world championships.
The GGP final offers 10,000 dollars to the first-place winners, 5,000 dollars
to second and 2,000 dollars to each of the third-place finishers.
Japan's other entries in the GGP final are:
Greco-roman
66kg – Hiroyuki Shimizu, Japan Self-Defense Forces
94kg – Taichi Oka, SDF
Women's freestyle
51kg – Yu Miyahara, JOC Academy
55kg – Kanako Murata, JOC Academy
59kg – Kayoko Shimada, SDF
63kg – Rio Watari, Shigakkan University
67kg – Sara Dosho, Shigakkan high school
72kg – Hiroe Suzuki, Clean-up club
3-TIME WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMP YAMAMOTO TO MAKE BID FOR 2012 OG
TOKYO (June 15) – Miyu Yamamoto, who won her first world title at the tender
age of 17 in 1991, has told reporters that she will make a bid for a position
on the Japanese Olympic team for the 2012 Games in London.
Yamamoto, listed as Miyu Ikeda in the international wrestling database,
won world titles in 1991, 1994 and 1995. Yamamoto, who turns 37 in August,
last appeared in the world championships in 1998 when she finished with
the silver medal.
Yamamoto joins younger sister Seiko Yamamoto in her Olympic quest and actually
decided to make a comeback during a training session with Seiko.
Yamamoto will attempt to qualify at 48kg, a category currently owned by reigning world champion Hitomi Sakamoto. Seiko is trying to qualify at 63kg.
Yamamoto said she planned to train in Canada until autumn and will return
to Japan for the Japan Women's Open in October in order to qualify for
the All-Japan Championships, one of the key qualifiers for a spot on the
2012 Olympic team.
Yamamoto attempted to qualify for the 2004 Olympic squad but lost in the
Japan Queens Cup tournament in February of that year and has not wrestled
competitively since then.
JAPAN 8TH AT KAZAKHSTAN PRESIDENT CUP, GR DUAL MEET TOURNEY
TOKYO (June 18-19) – Japan rolled over China 7-0 but could post only three
more individual wins in three losses as it finished in 8th place at the
Kazakhstan President Cup greco-roman dual meet tournament.
Kazakhstan A won the tourney with a 4-3 triumph over Hungary while Kazakhstan B took third place 5-2 over Korea.
In the other preliminary pool matches, world No. 5 Takehiro Kanakubo earned
Japan's only win over Kazakhstan A in a 6-1 loss with a 3-1 triumph over
Asia No. 3 Ashkat Dilmuhamedov at 74kg. Against Belarus, Shota Tanokura
stopped Europe No. 3 Elbek Tazhyiev 3-0 at 55kg.
In Japan's final dual, a 6-1 loss to Korea, Masayuki Amano pinned Asia
No. 2 Cho Hyo-Chul at 84kg.
FUJINAMI WINS 3RD STRAIGHT MIDDLE SCHOOL TITLE
MITO, Ibaraki (June 12) – Yuhi Fujinami won the boys 47kg crown to become
the fourth wrestler in Japanese wrestling history to win three straight
national middle school wrestling championships crowns.
Fujinami of Mie Prefecture follows Beijing Olympic silver medalist Tomohiro
Matsunaga (Shizuoka, 1993-1995), Shinya Matsumoto (Kyoto, 1997-1999) and
Hiroyuki Oda (2001-2003) onto the list of “three-peat” middle school champions.
In the girls' events, former judoka Masako Furuichi won the crown at 64kg and was named the outstanding girls wrestler of the tournament. Furuichi, who started wrestling in sixth grade, took second place her first year in the middle school tourney and then won last year.
Boys winners
38kg – Hirotaka Araki, Kumamoto
42kg – Taishi Narikuni, Tokyo
47kg – Yuhi Fujinami, Mie
53kg – Teppei Shin, Kanagawa
59kg – Yuji Tanabe, Osaka
66kg – Yajuro Yamazaki, Saitama
73kg – Shun Umehara, Shizuoka
85kg – Yasuteru Yamamoto, Shizuoka
110kg – Ryusei Sakata, Saitama
Girls winners
37kg – Hanako Sawa, Osaka
41kg – Kika Kagata, Tokyo
46kg – Miki Kawauchi, Osaka
52kg – Mayu Mukaida, Tokyo
58kg – Haruyo Kimura, Aomori
64kg – Masako Furuichi, Tokyo
70kg – Soju Tsuchihashi, Akita
EAST JAPAN COLLEGIATE FROSH-SOPH WINNERS
TOKYO (June 15-17) – Winners at the East Japan collegiate wrestling freshmen-sophomores
tournament at Komazawa Gymnasium:
Men's freestyle
55kg – Kodai Nishi, Waseda University
60kg – Fumitaka Morishita, Nippon Sports Sciences University
66kg – Koyu Isokawa, NSSU
74kg – Daisuke Shimada, Kokushikan University
84kg – Kokan Kameyama, Yamanashi Gakuin University
96kg – Tetsuya Tanaka, Daito Bunka University
120kg – Keiyu Nakamura, Nihon University
Greco-roman
55kg – Hirotaka Kimura, NSSU
60kg – Keisuke Ikeda, Waseda
66kg – Hiroki Nagasaki, YGU
74kg – Shunsuke Ikezawa, Senshu University
84kg - Keisuke Okuda, Takushoku University
96kg – Tetsuya Tanaka, DBU
120kg – Kotaro Kimura, Takushoku
EAST JAPAN WOMEN'S STUDENT C'SHIPS RESULTS
TOKYO (June 16) – Winners at the East Japan women's collegiate wrestling championships at Komazawa Gymnasium in Tokyo:
Women's freestyle
48kg – Arisa Tanaka, Waseda University
51kg – Haruka Hirano, Nihon University
55kg – Akane Kinoshita, Hosei University
59kg – Chiaki Arai, Waseda
63kg – Kasumi Utada, Toyo University
67kg – Chihiro Hashimoto, Nihon
72kg – Chiaki Iijima, Nihon
▼Previous page