Gold drought continues in judo

Judoka Lee Seung-su gestures after losing to Bulgaria’s Ivaylo Ivanov in the second round of the men’s 81 kg event at the Carioca Arena 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday. / Yonhap

By Park Jae-hyuk

South Korean judokas failed to clinch a gold medal for two consecutive days on day four of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics as both men and women failed to reach the finals, Wednesday (KST).

Bak Ji-yun was defeated by Britain’s Alice Schlesinger in the first round match of the women’s 63 kg event. Her first Olympics ended as she fell to the ground and injured her leg on Schlesinger’s “ippon.”

Lee Seung-su also lost to a “waza-ari” (half a point) by Bulgarian Ivaylo Ivanov in the second round match of the men’s 81 kg, after he won his first match against Australian Eoin Coughlan. Lee had defeated the 2008 Beijing Olympic silver medalist Wang Ki-chun in a national competition, but failed to win a medal in Rio.

South Korean judokas have won only two silvers so far ― An Ba-ul in the men’s 66 kg and Jeong Bo-kyeong in the women’s 48 kg.

The continuous defeats of judokas have shocked South Korean fans, as the team includes four top-ranking athletes.

Both local and foreign media anticipated that South Korean judokas would sweep the gold.

However, three top-ranking judoka ― Kim Won-jin in the men’s 60 kg, An Ba-ul in the men’s 66 kg and An Chang-rim in the 73 kg ― failed to win.

Kim Jan-di, the world No. 2 in the women’s 57 kg class, was also knocked out of the round of 16, Tuesday.

Judo experts point out that South Korean judokas were overexposed to their rivals, as they participated in the international competitions too frequently. They had participated in the matches to raise their world rankings, because higher ranking individuals are usually seeded better in the Olympics.

The experts also said a reason for the slump is that the South Korean team poorly analyzed their rivals after they were seeded.

There are three days left for the judo competitions and South Koreans will continue their hunt for the gold as two top judokas remain ― top-ranked Gwak Dong-han in the men’s 90 kg and Kim Seong-yeon who is placed sixth in the women’s 70 kg class.