Naohisa Takato

Naohisa Takato ( Japanese 高 藤 直 寿 , Takato Naohisa ; born May 30, 1993 in Shimotsuke , Tochigi Prefecture ) is a Japanese judoka . Until 2018 he was three times (2013, 2017 and 2018) world champion in extra light weight, the weight class up to 60 kilograms.

Athletic career

The 1.60 m tall Takato was U17 world champion in 2009 and U20 world champion in 2011. In 2012 he won his first Grand Slam tournament in Moscow, followed by victory in Tokyo in the same year and in Paris in early 2013. At the 2013 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro , he defeated the Kazakhs Jeldos Smetow in the quarter -finals, the South Korean Kim Won-jin in the semi-finals and Daschdawaagiin Amartüwschin from Mongolia in the final . At the end of the year he won the Grand Slam tournament in Tokyo again and in June 2014 he won in Budapest. At the 2014 World Championships in Chelyabinsk he lost to the Russian Beslan Mudranov in the semifinals , and with a victory over the Kazakhs Aibek Imaschew Takato secured a bronze medal. The next year Takato did not take part in the world championships, but won the Grand Slam tournaments in Paris and Tokyo in late 2015. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he lost to Georgian Amiran Papinashvili in the quarter-finals . In the hope round he first defeated the South Korean Kim Won-jin and then in the battle for bronze Orxan Səfərov from Azerbaijan. At the end of 2016 he lost to his compatriot Ryūju Nagayama in the final of the Grand Slam in Tokyo .

In May 2017 Takato won the final at the Asian Championships in Hong Kong against the Iranian Mohammad Rashnonezhad . At the 2017 World Championships in Budapest , he defeated the Uzbek Mukhriddin Tilovov in the quarter -finals, the Czech Pavel Petřikov in the semifinals and Orxan Səfərov from Azerbaijan in the final. A year later at the World Championships in Baku he defeated Karamat Huseynov from Azerbaijan in the quarterfinals , Ryuu Nagayama in the semifinals and the Russian Robert Mschwidobadze in the final . At the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo, he finished fifth after losing the battle for bronze to Ryūju Nagayama.

Web links

• Naohisa Takato in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Tournament results at judoinside.com

Footnotes

1. ↑ Match balance at judoinside.com
2. ↑ Asian Championships 2017 at judoinside.com