Takao Kawaguchi

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Takao Kawaguchi 1972

Takao Kawaguchi ( Japanese 川口 孝 夫 , Kawaguchi Takao , born April 13, 1950 in Hiroshima ) is a former Japanese judoka . He was Olympic champion in 1972 and world champion in 1971.

Career

The 1.64 m tall Takao Kawaguchi competed in the weight class up to 63 kilograms, which was the lightest class at the time. At the World Championships in 1971 in Ludwigshafen he defeated Sergei Suslin from the Soviet Union and the South Korean Choi Jong-sam and thus reached the final, which he won against his compatriot Toyokazu Nomura . In 1972 he won the Asian Championships in the lightweight, Nomura won the next higher weight class, the light middleweight.

At the Olympic Games in Munich , Kawaguchi won his first two fights early with Ippon. In the pool semifinals, he won over the Mongols Bachaawaagiin Bujadaa by a judge's decision (yusei-gachi). The Japanese won the pool final against Wolfram Koppen from Germany after 4:44 minutes. The other pool final was won by Frenchman Jean-Jacques Mounier . Apart from Kawaguchi and Mounier, the North Korean Kim Yong-ik and the Mongol Bujadaa reached the semi-finals via the consolation round. In the semifinals Bujadaa won against Mounier by a referee decision, Kawaguchi defeated Kim after 5:58 minutes by Ippon. Kawaguchi won the final after 39 seconds and received the gold medal, his opponent later lost the silver medal due to disqualification for doping.

The following year, Kawaguchi defeated the Frenchman Michel Algisi and the Cuban Héctor Rodríguez at the 1973 World Championships in Lausanne and thus moved into the final, where he was defeated by his compatriot Yoshiharu Minami . After three victories in international championships, Kawaguchi won the silver medal in his last major tournament.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Match balance at judoinside.com
  2. Asia Championships 1972 at judoinside.com
  3. Volker Kluge : Olympic Summer Games. The Chronicle III. Mexico City 1968 - Los Angeles 1984. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-328-00741-5 . P. 279 and p. 402, note 302