Naohisa Takato wins fourth world title in superior style

Olympic champion and three-time world champion, Naohisa Takato was the biggest favourite for another world title. The Japanese had two quiet rounds against the German Moritz Plafky and the Korean Jeon Seung-beom before facing another of the greats, the Spanish and two-time European champion, Francisco Garrigós. Takato won, because he is better than anyone else.

In the semi-finals, the Japanese faced the number one seed from Taipei Yang Yung Wei who was on his way to a good performance in Tashkent. It was a a repeat of the Olympic final and became the fight of the day. These two know each other well and both are precise in their movements, do not waste unnecessary energy, measure the time and control the rival. They are the best in the category. In Tokyo Takato was the best but a year has passed. Takato set the pace and two seconds from the end scored waza-ari. Two seconds from the end, as if Yang was a beginner, which shows the quality of the Japanese.

One of the great surprises was Ariunbold Enkhtaivan. The surprise is because the Mongolian is already 26 years old and has not gone beyond the bronze medal at World Judo Tour events. In Tashkent he decided to push the limits of his ability and presented some spectacular judo. After getting rid of Angelo Pantano in the quarter-finals (he pushed out Jorre Verstraeten), Enkhtaivan went to the semi-finals to complete the second big surprise of the day, embodied by Dilshodbek Baratov. Baratov, number 58 in the ranking, played the host with bad intentions. Fighting at home in the most prestigious tournament, with the crowd cheering, with drums and trumpets, had a euphoric effect on Baratov, who became a rival of unknown ferocity. This time we had not looked for him but he found us, he put everyone in agreement on his ability. If we compare trajectories, Baratov was without a doubt the sensation of the day and he had the possibility of reaching the final.

Baratov started well, forcing two shido against Enkhtaivan, who seemed unaware that he was contesting a world semi-final. When he finally understood it, golden score was already there. Baratov's sin was to look for his rival's third shido instead of the ippon and when the jug goes to the source so much it ends up breaking. The lesson to be learned was not to miss opportunities that do not usually appear twice. When the Mongol was on the ropes, Baratov made a terrible mistake by diving and was penalised with hansoku-make. It was a real cold water shower for the public. Baratov had the face of disbelief and Enkhtaivan then realised that he had been saved by a miracle. Enkhtaivan is successor of other Mongolian lightweight finallists such as Amartuvshin Dashdavaa and 2014 world champion Boldbaatar Ganbaatar.

Imagine the opportunity for Enkhtaivan in his first world final against the legend Takato. Takato proved to be in splendid form, and the Mongolian couldn’t do much, just enjoy a world final because many would have liked to be in his place. The match ended in a quick and clean waza-ari and ippon, a procedure for the Japanese who held up four fingers for his fourth world title and belongs to the top 10 of the all time great men ever. As for Takato, with a fourth world title and Olympic gold, we realised that being able to admire his judo is a luxury.

Bronze medals

Kazakh Yeldos Smetov, former world champion, was against Baratov for bronze. A Kazakh and an Uzbek, neighbours, with the public divided, a stylish party, a fabulous atmosphere to settle the first bronze. At his best Smetov is a wonder. Baratov brought enthusiasm and resistance because technically he is inferior but mental strength can be what makes the difference. Not this time. Smetov hit waza-ari in golden score and took the second bronze medal for his country on the first day.

Yang was the clear favourite in the fight for the second bronze against Wolczak. Yang managed to knock the Israeli down and gave a ne-waza recital. He took him in his stride and built a beautiful offence to turn Wolczak around and pin him; a bronze-worthy move that proves those who don't like to work on the ground wrong.

Surprises

There are always some athletes who get surprised during such tournament such as former World Champion from Georgia Lukhumi Chkhvimiani. He was a candidate for the medals and ultra-favourite against the Israeli Yam Wolczak, was eliminated for trusting himself and Wolczak won for believing in his possibilities, for proposing a very serious fight, avoiding mistakes and for attacking. His ippon in golden score was the best example to illustrate that there is no small rival.

Belgian Jorre Verstraeten is the number two in the ranking and the Italian and Angelo Pantano, between ranks at number twenty-seven. It was Pantano who withstood the downpour, put Verstraeten into a trap, from which he could not escape. Pantano won by ippon.

Tornike Tsjakadoea who was fifth at the Olympic Games got surprised by the later finalist Enkhtaivan. Lee Harim by Baratov. The field had a good quality so there are always a few casualties.

Takato’s Ko-Uchi

Japan's Naohisa Takato is a really unusual player. When he first burst onto the international scene, he was considered a real oddity because of the techniques he seemed to favor: side takedown, front uchimata, waist-grab ouchi.

These were the kind of unorthodox techniques you don't see being used by Japanese players.

The thing is, Takato is also fully capable of doing classical techniques. He has a very strong, traditional sode-tsurikomi-goshi (he's a left-hander so the throws sode to the right), he has an effective uchimata although he is quite short. And, of course, he has a very sharp kouchi-gari.

The kouchi-gari he does is what is typically referred to as the skipping kouchi, where he does a little skip towards his opponent's far leg (target leg) and clips his heel. He then drives forward to take uke down.

He's so good and so precise with this technique that he often scores ippon with this. 

Japan's Naohisa Takato was the top favorite and he did not disappoint. Although he had not fought any international matches since the Tokyo Olympics, he was in top form in Tashkent.

Taiwan's Yang Yung Wei would have been a good opponent in the final but they met in the semifinals instead. Yang had done well to defeat former World Champion Yeldos Smetov, with a cross-grip drop seoi-nage in the quarterfinal. His semifinal match against Takato was a close one, which was decided by an uchimata for waza-ari in the dying seconds of the match.

Mongolia's Ariunbold Enkhtaivan was a dark horse whose best IJF World Tour results were two bronzes. But he defeated home favorite Dishodbek Baratov, who got hansoku for head diving, for a spot in the final. There, he lost to Takato by two kouchi-garis.

The big upset of the day was Lukhumi Chkhvimiani (GEO) losing out to Yam Wolczak of Israel in his first match. He was thrown with a drop morote-seoi-nage for ippon.