Yūji Takada

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Yūji Takada ( Japanese高田 裕 司, Takada Yūji ; born February 17, 1954 in Ōta ) is a former Japanese wrestler . He was an Olympic champion in 1976 and a four-time flyweight world champion in free style.

Career

Yūji Takada began wrestling as a teenager in high school. In 1976 he became a student at Nippon Sport Science University and continued this sport there. He grew into a world class free style athlete. In 1973 he became the first Japanese flyweight champion. In the same year he was also used for the first time in an international championship, the world championship in Tehran , in flyweight. He won four fights there, but suffered defeats from Arsen Alachwerdijew from the USSR and Ibrahim Javadi from Iran and won the bronze medal.

At the 1974 World Cup in Istanbul , three victories were enough for Takada to win the world championship title. That was because he worked with Ali Rıza Alan , Turkey , Roman Dmitriew , USSR and others. Dojodovyn Ganbat , Mongolia defeated the wrestlers who finished second to fourth behind him. He also had bye tickets in one round.

In 1975 Takada celebrated winning his second World Cup title in Minsk . The special thing about it was that he won this title with “0” missing points because he defeated his six opponents prematurely. Also at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal , Takada was highly superior in the flyweight division. Of the seven opponents he had to face, only the Soviet athlete Alexander Ivanov came with him over time, but lost big on points. Takada defeated the remaining six opponents again prematurely and won the gold medal with 0.5 missing points.

At the 1977 World Championships in Lausanne , Takada repeated the fantastic performance of 1975. With seven early victories, he was again world champion with “0” missing points.

The fact that Takada was not unbeatable was first shown at the 1978 World Cup in Mexico City . The big favorite Yūji Takada lost his first fight prematurely against the Soviet athlete Anatoli Beloglasow and also suffered a defeat from Hartmut Reich from Jena in the fifth fight, which only allowed him to come in 5th place.

A year later, Takada managed to take revenge at the World Championships in San Diego both against Anatoli Beloglasow, whom, as luck would have it, he met again in the first round and this time scored well, and against Hartmut Reich, whom he even scored prematurely defeated. He also won his other fights prematurely and was world champion in a superior style for the fourth time.

In 1980 Takada was affected by the Olympic boycott, so he could not compete in Moscow . From 1981 to 1983 he took a break on the international mat. In 1984 he started again at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles , but was no longer the sovereign wrestler from 1974 to 1979. He lost in the newly introduced pool system in his pool against Šaban Trstena from Yugoslavia and was therefore only second in the pool fight for the bronze medal against Ray Takahashi from Canada . He won this fight safely on points.

Then he ended his international wrestling career. At the age of 36, Takada attempted a comeback because the World Cup was taking place in his native Tokyo , but, judging by his earlier successes, failed. He could no longer keep up with the new and above all much younger wrestling stars who had grown up in the meantime and ended up in 8th place.

Then he finally ended his active wrestling career. He then made a career for himself and as a sports functionary, became a professor of law and politics at Yamanashi Gakum University and held high offices in the Japanese Wrestling Association, the Japanese National Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee. Before that, he was also the Japanese head coach of the national freestyle team for a number of years. In 2004 he was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling .

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, F = free style, Fl = flyweight, back then up to 52 kg body weight)

Japanese championships

Yūji Takada won the Japanese free style flyweight championship from 1973 to 1980, 1984 and 1990.

swell

  • Div. Issues of the specialist magazines "Athletik" from 1973 to 1975 and "Der Ringer" from 1976 to 1990,
  • Documentation of International Wrestling championships of FILA, 1976,
  • International Wrestling Databank of the University of Leipzig,
  • Website of the International Wrestling Federation (FILA)

Individual evidence

  1. June wrestling news , accessed July 22, 2010

Web links