One gold in women’s wrestling at World Championships leaves Japan with questions before Tokyo 2020

Japan’s freestyle team finished the World Championships without a single medal. The gold standard in women’s wrestling had only one gold medal to show for their effort. The Japanese women did win the team title but their below-par showing in Nursultan was an eye-opener for the host nation of next year’s Olympic Games.

The disappointment was evident even in the press box, which had more than 60 media representatives who had travelled from Japan for the World Championships. Nursultan was also the first Olympic qualifying event which offered six Olympic quotas each in six weight categories in each of the three wrestling styles – men’s freestyle, women’s wrestling and Greco-Roman.

In hope of some of the wrestlers preparing for Tokyo 2020 with gold medals, the Japanese media had arrived in large numbers.

“Terrible performance from the team,” Abe, a journalist from Japan said. “Everyday, I had to write that, the feeling was very unusual for me because we usually win a lot of gold medals. Now, we ended up with just one-two gold medals in the entire tournament.”

Writers and camerapersons alike barely believed what they saw and were critical of their team’s performance in their reports. Risako Kawai, Shinobu Ota and Kenichiro Futima were the only gold medallists in the 30 weight categories, a drop of five medals from last year’s Championships in Budapest.

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Olympic champions like Sara Dosho even failed to win a medal in women’s 68kg after finishing fifth.

“Dosho should have won gold here but I think the shoulder injury limited her a lot,” Akiko Takeda, Japan Wrestling Association’s media manager, said. “She looked strong but did not manage to win a medal which raises doubt.”

The country had decided to send all Olympic weight category medal winners from World Championships directly to the Games. But the wrestlers winning the quota but not bagging a medal will have to wrestle in the national championships.

But what’s more worrying for Japan is the lack of medals in freestyle.

“We had hoped for three gold medals in women’s wrestling and one in freestyle,” Takeda said. “Takuto Otoguro was very bad over here. Even Yuki Takahashi was expected to win a quota but he failed; it was difficult for Japan.”

Staying positive

Four years ago in Las Vegas, Japan finished with three gold, one silver and one bronze in women’s wrestling. This is also the first time since 2009 that Japan failed to win the gold medal in the 50kg category. Interestingly, this is also the first time Japan won only one gold since women’s wrestling became part of the Olympics in 2004.

“I don’t think it’s a catastrophic loss,” Hideo Sasayama, coach of Japan women’s team said. “The colour of the medal can be changed if we wrestle (well) in the Olympics.”

There were no such positives to look up to for Shinobu Ota. Despite winning the Greco-Roman world title in 63kg, he spent hours crying and thinking about his Olympic dream. Since 63kg was made a non-Olympic category, Ota’s plan was to drop down to 60kg if Japan doesn’t win a medal and earn a quota for the Tokyo Games.

But Kenichiro Futima won the gold medal in the 60kg category to book his spot which left Ota, a Rio Olympics silver medallist, ruing his luck. The only way to appear on the Olympic team now will be to bump up to 67kg but it will be a tough ask for him to match the strength of his opponents in that category.

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However, it’s the men’s freestyle category that would worry the Japanese as no one managed to win a medal. Otoguro, a 2018 world champion in 65kg category, wrestled for bronze in Nursultan but lost to Musakaev of Hungary. He will now have to wrestle in the national championships of Japan, and later in the trials, to earn his spot in the team. After losing his bout, the 20-year-old was seen arguing with the referees and refused to talk to the media.

“That was misbehaviour and we cannot tolerate that,” a spokesperson from the federation said. “Whatever the result, you cannot misbehave. He is forgetting his values and we need to teach him again. You are bringing bad repute to Japan.

“Every wrestler is taught this when we call media to our national camp. They are taught moral and behaviour science for such situations.”

Otoguro’s draw was one of the toughest and he lost his pre-quarterfinal bout to eventual champion Gadzimurad Rashidov of Russia. In repechage, he beat two-time 61kg world champion Haji Aliev but lost the bronze-medal bout to Iszmail Muszukajev of Hungary.

“The federation will review the performance of the team and prepare a report of the same,” Takeda said. “We have to look at the problems. We qualified a lot of weights in women but others were not up to the mark.”

Target is much higher

In total, Japan qualified for eight of the 18 Olympic weight classes. They will now look to grab maximum spots at the Asian qualifiers in March next year as the Japan Olympic committee has projected 30 gold medal from Tokyo Games.

“Our Olympic committee is targeting 30 gold medals,” Takeda said. “Wrestling, judo, swimming and gymnastics are the major sports and they are projecting maximum medals.”

Japan’s best-ever performance at the Olympics was at the Tokyo Games in 1964 with 16 gold medals which saw them finish third on the list. They won the same number of gold medals at the 2004 Games but finished fifth.

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While 30 gold medals next year is a long shot, Japan will also be hit by two of their legends missing the Games. Wrestlers Sari Yoshida and Kaori Icho will not be competing after the former retired while three-time gold winner Icho lost her spot to Kawai, who won gold in Nursultan.

Kawai will now have a chance to win gold along with her sister Yukako in Tokyo after the latter also qualified for the Games in the 62kg category.

“It’s good to see them win here so they will wrestle in Tokyo. I hope they could win medals at home as well and keep women’s wrestling high,” Takeda said.

Furthermore, Japan has to secure the quota in women’s 50kg and men’s 57kg as lower weights are their strength.

“Susaki should come back to win the national championships,” Takedo said. “But she lost to Irie in trials before World Championships so nothing is confirmed. Rio champion Tosaka will also make a comeback. It will be crazy in December.”