After seven days of individual competition, the final world titles have been awarded in Baku. Lee Hyeonji and Inal Tasoev brought the individual programme to a close, each adding their name to the story of the ongoing World Judo Championships in Baku. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Olympic and world champions peppering the women’s -78kg draw, finding a nineteen year old in the final was a surprise for many, but Hyeonji has been climbing the ranking and picking off the opposition steadily for the last couple of years and in Baku it all came together excellently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the first 2 minutes and 10 seconds Romane Dicko was leading on attacks and looked to be ready to take the win at any moment. Faster to her favourite grip, attacking without hesitation, Dicko looked back at her best form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Hyeonji is as explosive as they come, all her power going into every technique. She turned in with a huge harai-goshi and threw for a waza-ari, transitioning to the osaekomi without delay. Dicko was unable to do anything against the young Korean and as the ten seconds needed to convert her first score to ippon ticked by, both judoka knew the outcome was set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the final Hyeonji said, “I am so thrilled to win this world championship title. I feel I managed to deliver a complete and polished performance today. Facing Romane Dicko in the final was a first for me, I felt very nervous beforehand. However, I know I perform well against unfamiliar opponents, so I trusted my abilities and stuck to my own style throughout the contest. It is an immense source of pride to bring this gold medal home to South Korea.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a day dominated by the unshakable Inal Tasoev, the real question may well have been, who would win the silver and bronze medals? Nothing is ever guaranteed but Tasoev arrived in Baku unwilling to accept anything other than ippon judo and perfect composure. The questions were therefore, who could disturb him, who could force him into error?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even a double world champion may have a mountain to climb to get past a man on home soil, and an experienced man to boot. Ushangi Kokauri is also a double world medallist and arrived in the final block in excellent form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strong gripping was inevitable from both judoka. Kokauri felt his crowd with him and pushed hard to deliver what they asked of him. He attacked with o-uchi-gari but Tasoev was too aware and stepped away, countering with perfect te-waza to score ippon. A third world championship gold was now his; this is an outstanding career already and with much more to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Inal Tasoev was forthright after his win, \u201cI heard that everyone was against me in the arena and I understood, I respect that. They supported their athlete but it is my job to win here and my job is done now. This is why I came here, this is why I practised. The next goal is the Olympic title!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After seven days of individual competition, the final world titles have been awarded in Baku. Lee Hyeonji and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-16548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-judo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t