Sarah Asahina

Sarah Asahina ( Japanese 朝 比奈沙羅 Asahina Sarah ; born October 22, 1996 ) is a Japanese judoka . She won two individual world championships by 2018.

Athletic career

Asahina fights in the heavyweight division. In 2011 she won the title at the U17 World Championships. In 2013 she won the European Open in the adult class in Sofia. In 2014 she became the U21 world champion in Fort Lauderdale in singles and with the team. In 2015, the Tōkai University student won the title at the Universiade in Gwangju. At the end of 2016, Asahina won the Grand Slam tournament in Tokyo, two months later she also won the tournament in Paris.

At the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, she defeated the Turkish Kayra Sayit in the semifinals and lost to the Chinese Yu Song in the final . The day after winning the silver medal, she won the team classification with the Japanese team. In November 2017 Sarah Asahina took part in the world championships in the open class in Marrakech. In the semifinals she defeated the Cuban Idalys Ortíz , the final she won against Larisa Cerić from Bosnia-Herzegovina. At the end of 2017 she won the Grand Slam tournament in Tokyo for the second time, beating her compatriot Akira Sone in the final.

In 2018 Akira Sone won the final of the Japanese championships against Asahina. At the 2018 World Championships in Baku she won the quarterfinals against Kayra Sayit, the semifinals against Larisa Cerić and the final against Idalys Ortíz. With the Japanese team, she also won the team championship on the last day of the world championships. In 2019 Ortíz and Asahina faced each other again in the final of the Grand Slam tournament in Düsseldorf, this time the Cuban won. At the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo, she lost to Kayra Sayit in the quarter-finals, with wins over Larisa Cerić and Brazilian Maria Suelen Altheman , Asahina secured a bronze medal.

Web links

• Tournament results at judoinside.com

Footnotes

1. ↑ Match balance at judoinside.com