LONDON: Japan’s judo coaches have admitted their Olympic Games team has performed below expectations after claiming just one gold medal over the first four days of competition.
Kaori Matsumoto’s win in the under-57kg division on Monday remains their only title after eight of the 14 categories while the men have yet to claim a single gold.
Japan’s mark of one gold, two silver and two bronze is far lower than they are used to achieving. By this same stage in Beijing four years ago they had won two golds, one each for men and women, as well as two bronze.
They ended that competition with four gold, one silver and two bronze and although they topped the medals table it was considered a disaster back in Japan.
At last year’s World Championships in Paris they had five gold, three silver and a bronze by this stage as they dominated the lightweight divisions.
In fact it was in those lighter divisions, particularly the women’s Categories, where they expected to dominate.
At last year’s Worlds they provided both finalists in the women’s under-48kg and under-52kg divisions but at the Games they failed to win a medal in either.
“It’s very severe, we wanted two gold medals at least by now,” said women’s coach Isamu Sonoda, himself an Olympic champion in 1976 in Montreal.
“In particular we thought we could get gold medals in the under-48kg and under-52kg categories but we didn’t win any medals at all.”
That was particularly galling as double world under-48kg champion Haruna Asami and world under-52kg leader Yuka Nishida were left at home.
It’s not as though Japan were not relying on talented fighters, though, as they brought world number one at under-48kg Tomoko Fukumi and world under-52kg champion Misato Nakamura.
The biggest risk was perhaps Matsumoto as she only won bronze in Paris last year whereas Aiko Sato took gold. But Matsumoto is the only Japanese to have delivered gold in London.
And she recognised after her victory the importance of her medal for the team’s morale. “I was able to get gold on behalf of my colleagues Fukumi and Nakamura so I’m very happy,” she said.
“There was indeed pressure but I did what I wanted to do along the way and I think that helped me to get this medal.”
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