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)
JWF ASKED TO HOST WOMEN’S WORLD CUP AGAIN
TOKYO (March 11) - The Japan Wrestling Federation
is looking into the possibility of hosting
the World Cup of women’s wrestling in October,
following a request from FILA. The JWF is
checking to see if it can obtain the use
of Komazawa Gymnasium in Tokyo for October
8-9.
If the gymnasium can be secured, Japan will
host the World Cup meet for a second straight
year. Japan hosted the third World Cup of
women’s wrestling last fall, but failed
to make it a “three-peat” when the team
lost to the United States in the final. The
JWF has indicated that it would likely include
Japan’s four Olympic representatives on
the World Cup team in an attempt to regain
the
title it lost to the United States last year.
HITOMI SAKAMOTO RETURNS TO ACTION
TOKYO (March 14) - Former FILA wrestler
of the year Hitomi Sakamoto, forced to sit
out the Olympic team trials with some niggling
injuries, returned to action at the women’s
national team training camp in mid-March.
Sakamoto, who won a pair of world titles
at 51 kg in 2000 and 2001 along with the
FILA wrestler of the year award, indicated
that she would compete in the national team
trials on April 3-4 for the Asian championships.
Rena Iwama and Norie Saito, who won
championships at last year’s Asia meet in
New Delhi took part in the camp, but Miyu
Yamamoto and Seiko Yamamoto sat out the camp
after tough losses in last month’s Japan
Queen’s Cup.
TANABE, IKEMATSU 3RD AT YASAR DOGU INT’L
ANKARA, Turkey (March 14) - Japanese
Olympic team members Chikara Tanabe and Kazuhiko
Ikematsu won bronze medals at the Yasar Dogu
International freestyle tournament March
12-14 in Ankara, Turkey. Tanabe pinned Turkey’s
entry at the 2002 world championships Ersin
Cetin in a preliminary pool match after giving
up an 4-0 lead. The Tokyo police officer
also pinned Korea’s Yang Jae-Hoon in the
quarterfinals.
Tanabe, however, lost to world bronze
medalist Oleksei Zakharuk of Ukraine 5-0.
In the match for third place, Tanabe had
little trouble fashioning a 5-0 win over
Murat Geneturk of Turkey.
Ikematsu, the bronze medalist at
66 kg at last year’s world meet, eased through
his preliminary pool and was leading Turkey’s
Levent Kaleli 3-0 in the semifinals. He lost
by fall, however, when he was flipped to
his back while attempting to add to his lead.
In the match for third place, Ikematsu gave
up the first point to Kyanysli Sulermenov,
but then took advantage of the Kazakh wrestler’s
mistakes to forge a 6-1 win.
The 66-kg crown went to 18-year-old
Russian phenom Makhach Murtazaliev, who upset
compatriot and reigning world champion Irbek
Farniev 4-2 in the finals of the Yarygin
International in January.
At 74 kg, Kunihiko Obata dropped
a 4-1 decision to 2002 world student champion
Fahretten Oezata of Turkey in the first round
and failed to advance out of his pool.
Results of Japanese entries:
55 kg - TANABE, Chikara (3rd, 22 entries)
R1 - bye
R2 - df. Mustafa Kartal (TUR) by TF, 2:04
R3 - df. Ersin Cetin by fall (TUR) by fall,
5:41 (8-6)
QF - df. Yang Jae-Hoon (KOR) by fall, 2:11
(6-0)
SF - lost to Oleksei Zakharuk (UKR), 5-0
F3 - df. Murat Geneturk (TUR), 5-0
66 kg - IKEMATSU, Kazuhiko (3rd, 20 entries)
R1 - df. Mucahit Ozturk (TUR), 4-0
R2 - df. Abdullah Cakirer (TUR), 5-0
R3 - df. Baek Jin-Kuk (KOR) by default
SF - lost to Levent Kaleli (TUR) by fall,
3:28 (3-4)
F3 - df. Sulermenov Kyanysli (KAZ), 6-1
74 kg - OBATA, Kunihiko (dnp, 25 entries)
R1 - lost to Fahrettin Oezata (TUR), 4-1
R2 - bye
R3 - df. Byung Kwan-Cho (KOR), 10-1
JWF MOVES TO HELP IRAQi WRESTLING
TOKYO (March 26) - The Japan Wrestling
Federation is ready to help the Iraq Wrestling
Federation by accepting Iraqi wrestlers at
its training camps prior to this summer’s
Olympic Games in Athens. Iraq, which did
not see any of its wrestlers qualify for
the Olympics at last year’s world championships
or at the qualifying competitions in February
and March, is widely expected to receive
a number of wild card berths.
Iraqi wrestlers could join the Japanese
training camps as early as April. The JWF
has also extended support to the Afghan Wrestling
Federation and sent national team coach Kosei
Akaishi to Afghanistan in the summer of 2002
to help the team prepare for the Asian Games
that fall in South Korea. The JWF said that
it wanted to help with the revival of sports
in countries disrupted by war or civil strife
and indicated that Afghan wrestlers may also
join in the Japanese training camps.
KASUMIGAURA BAGS TEAM TITLE, 3 INDIVIDUAL
CROWNS AT HS INVITE
NIIGATA, Niigata Prefecture (March
28) - Kasumigaura high school of Ibaraki
Prefecture defeated Akita Shogyo high school
6-1 for the team title in the national high
school invitational meet at Niigata municipal
gymnasium. Kasumigaura, which was the defending
champion, won the team title for a 14th team
and had three champions in the individual
competition.
In the team semifinals, Kasumigaura
downed Kosei Gakuin of Aomori 5-2 and Akita
Shogyo stopped Saitama Sakae by the same
score. Kosei Gakuin and Saitama Sakae both
took home third-place honors.
Individual winners were:
50 kg - Kazutoshi Fukudome (Kasumigaura)
55 kg - Isshin Kuramoto (Hino, Shiga)
60 kg - Shigeki Ozawa (Kasumigaura)
66 kg - Shu Miyahara (Akita Shogyo)
74 kg - Aoi Otsuki (Nihon Bunri Daifu, Oita)
84 kg - Toshio Kobayashi (Ueda Nishi, Nagano)
96 kg - Ryota Kimaku (Kasumigaura)
120 kg - Shinya Arakida (Kosei Gakuin)
IMURO DEFEATS MIYATA IN MEIJI NYUGYO CUP
QUALIFIER
TOKYO (March 21) - Olympic hopeful
Masaki Imuro defeated Sydney Olympian Kazuyuki
Miyata 3-0 in overtime to earn a berth in
the Meiji Nyugyo Cup national invitational
finals. Imuro, who failed to qualify for
this summer’s Olympic Games at 66 kg, moved
up to 74 kg to defeat Miyata and keep his
hopes for a ticket to Athens alive.
Japan has a berth secured at 74 kg
in the greco-roman event thanks to a 10th
place finish at last year’s world championships
by Kazuhiko Nagata. The 74-kg position remains
up for grabs after Nagata lost in the finals
of the national championships last December.
The Meiji Nyugyo Cup meet will serve
as a qualification meet for the Japanese
Olympic team for 74 kg in greco-roman and
the other undecided weight categories --
60 kg and 84 kg in freestyle and 55 kg, 60
kg and 84 kg in greco-roman.
Also in the invitational preliminaries
held at the national training center, former
national team member Ryosuke Ota and 2002
student world champion at 55 kg Tomohiro
Matsunaga both won a pair of matches to advance
to the main event at 60 kg.
In greco-roman, former national team
member Tomoya Murata won by technical fall
and fall to open his bid for the 55-kg berth
won by Masatoshi Toyota in Tashkent on March
7.
SEIKO, HITOMI ENTER TRIALS FOR ASIAN C’SHIPS
TOKYO (March 21) - Reigning world champion
Seiko Yamamoto and former FILA wrestler-of-the-year
Hitomi Sakamoto have submitted entries for
the national team trials for the Asian championships
in May. Four-time world champion Yamamoto,
who lost out in her bid for an Olympic team
berth at 55 kg to Saori Yoshida earlier this
month, will vie for the 59-kg slot on the
national team against 12 other entries.
Sakamoto, the world champion in 2000
and 2001, is entered at 51 kg and will face
the challenge of Asia champion Ninako Hattori
and junior world champion Sachiko Akasaka.
At 67 kg, national team veteran Norie Saito
drops back down to her weight after an unsuccessful
bid for the 72-kg Olympic berth held by Kyoko
Hamaguchi.
Former world champion Ayako Shoda,
last year’s Asian champion at 63 kg, will
challenge Saito along with Eri Sakamoto.
Olympic team members Yoshida, Hamaguchi and
Kaori Icho (63) will fill out Japan’s team
for the Asia championships.
The 48-kg slot will be finished by
the winner of a special wrestle-off between
national champion Chiharu Icho and Japan
Queens Cup winner Makiko Sakamoto.
SUWAMA JOINS PRO WRESTLING GROUP
TOKYO (March 19) - Former national
team heavyweight Kohei Suwama announced that
he is joining the All-Japan Professional
Wrestling organization. Suwama, 28, decided
to make the move to pro wrestling after national
champion Akihito Tanaka failed to qualify
Japan for the Olympics at 120 kg. Suwama,
who hails from Kanagawa Prefecture, competed
in judo and wrestling for Fujimine Gakuen
high school and then turned his attention
to wrestling at Chuo University.
Suwama won the national invitational
title last year and represented Japan at
the Asian and world championships.