Japan once again lived up to its reputation as the benchmark of judo excellence at the World Junior Judo Championships in Lima, Peru. The East Asian giants took home five solid gold medals at the championships, despite failing to win any on the final day of the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The women’s -78 kg final block promised a thrilling conclusion to a day dominated by European powerhouses. After eliminating top seed Lila Mazzarino of France in the semi-final, Maria Hanstede of the Netherlands stepped onto the tatami determined to finish the job, while Mathilda Sophie Niemeyer of Germany, who had shown great control throughout the preliminaries, aimed to crown her consistent performance with gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was an intense final that remained evenly balanced for much of the contest before Hanstede broke the deadlock with a yuko near the edge of the mat from a counterattack. With just a minute remaining, Niemeyer searched for an opening but found no way through, and Maria Hanstede claimed gold for the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The women’s +78 kg final block featured some of the tournament\u2019s most dominant athletes. Celia Cancan of France, world number one and top seed, continued her impressive run to reach yet another world final, where she faced Umida Nigmatova of Uzbekistan, the reigning cadet world champion who once again displayed power and determination throughout the preliminaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigmatova gave everything she had, repeatedly putting Cancan under pressure. The French judoka, however, relied on her experience to recover from each attack. First, she countered beautifully with a ko-uchi-gake for waza-ari, then followed up with a clean hip movement to score again, sealing her long-awaited world title, finally breaking her streak of near misses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The men’s -100 kg final block saw Milan Bulaja of Serbia, the world number one and top seed, maintained his dominance to reach the final, where he faced Shokei Hirano of Japan, whose technical precision and calm execution had guided him steadily through the elimination rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a tactical final, with few openings on either side, but Bulaja found one, a perfectly timed sode-tsuri-komi-goshi scored for waza-ari, enough to secure Serbia\u2019s gold medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The +100 kg final block brought together the day\u2019s heaviest hitters, blending explosive strength with sharp tactical control. Gai Hatakeyama of Japan, after an impressive run through the preliminaries, faced neutral entrant Bislan Katamardov in a much-anticipated final that promised a clash between Hatakeyama\u2019s traditional Japanese precision and Katamardov\u2019s dynamic, adaptable style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took just 28 seconds for Katamardov to end Hatakeyama\u2019s gold medal hopes. With a textbook ippon-seoi-nage, he scored an immediate ippon, claiming the last gold medal of the individual championships in emphatic fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Women’s -78 kg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. HANSTEDE Maria (NED)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. NIEMEYER Mathilda Sophie (GER)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. RIABCHENKO Alexandra (IJF)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. CAMILLO Dandara (BRA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. STJEPANOVIC Jovana (SRB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. MAZZARINO Lila (FRA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. CAPONETTO Cinzia (ITA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. KLINGER Johanna Elisabeth (BIH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. CANCAN Celia (FRA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. NIGMATOVA Umida (UZB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. MINKADA-CAQUINEAU Leonie (FRA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. MISHINER Yuli Alma (ISR)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. SOLIMAN Safa (EGY)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. AKTAS Emma-Melis (EST)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. YAMAGUCHI Hikaru (JPN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. CURBELO TRAVIESO Dayanara (CUB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. BULAJA Milan (SRB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. HIRANO Shokei (JPN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. ZDRALE Lazar (SRB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. ZOIROV Mukhammadali (UZB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. FEDIN Anton (IJF)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. BIRZHANOV Askar (KAZ)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. LIUBIMOVSKI Daniel (USA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. ALAPISHVILI Nodari (GEO)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. KATAMARDOV Bislan (IJF)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. HATAKEYAMA Gai (JPN)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. AKIANA MONGO Matheo (FRA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. SUHA Mortaza (GER)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. MASAK Marek-Adrian (EST)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5. RAFIKOV Fazliddin (UZB)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. TATAROGLU Ibrahim (TUR)<\/p>\n\n\n\n 7. BADUASHVILI Giorgi (GEO)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Japan once again lived up to its reputation as the benchmark of judo excellence at the World Junior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-judo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER-300x231.jpg",300,231,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg",640,492,false],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Final-Maria-Hanstede-NED-vs-Mathilda-Sophie-Niemeyer-GER.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4378,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions\/4378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Women’s +78 kg<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Men’s -100 kg<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Men’s +100 kg<\/h4>\n\n\n\n