Ueno retains Olympic gold to add fourth in Japan's haul
Thursday, 14 August 2008
BEIJING, Aug 13 :Japan's Masae Ueno saved her Olympic title in middleweight judo by throwing down Cuban Anaysi Hernandez Wednesday, adding the fourth gold to Japan's delegation at Beijing Olympic Games.
Masae Ueno (29) stunned Hernandez by pushing her directly to the mat within 46 seconds in the five-minute bout, which meant an sudden victory.
The Japanese defending champion had not made frequent appearance in international competitions after winning the 70kg-class match in Athens. Yet she managed four ippon-games in all five Wednesday evening.
Before meeting Hernandez, Ueno repeated her success in the final at Athens Games by shoulder-throwing Edith Bosch, silver medalist in Athens from the Netherlands, with a waza-ari in the semifinal.
In the meet with her Dutch rival, Ueno, with a height of 1.6 meter, only surrendered a koka to Bosch who is 1.83-metre high. Ueno's defeat over Bosch has given another demonstration showing that judoka's ability could not be judged by size of their figures.
Edith Bosch of the Netherlands later beat Spanish Leire Iglesias by an ippon to have her second Olympic medal. The other bronze medal was grabbed by Ronda Rousey from the United States who upset Annett Boehm of Germany by yuko.
Rousey also won the first Olympic medal for the United States' female judokas since the women's judo events were introduced into Olympic programme in Seoul, 1988.
Masae Ueno (29) stunned Hernandez by pushing her directly to the mat within 46 seconds in the five-minute bout, which meant an sudden victory.
The Japanese defending champion had not made frequent appearance in international competitions after winning the 70kg-class match in Athens. Yet she managed four ippon-games in all five Wednesday evening.
Before meeting Hernandez, Ueno repeated her success in the final at Athens Games by shoulder-throwing Edith Bosch, silver medalist in Athens from the Netherlands, with a waza-ari in the semifinal.
In the meet with her Dutch rival, Ueno, with a height of 1.6 meter, only surrendered a koka to Bosch who is 1.83-metre high. Ueno's defeat over Bosch has given another demonstration showing that judoka's ability could not be judged by size of their figures.
Edith Bosch of the Netherlands later beat Spanish Leire Iglesias by an ippon to have her second Olympic medal. The other bronze medal was grabbed by Ronda Rousey from the United States who upset Annett Boehm of Germany by yuko.
Rousey also won the first Olympic medal for the United States' female judokas since the women's judo events were introduced into Olympic programme in Seoul, 1988.