ASIAN GAMES

Takahashi leads the way as 3 Japanese judoka make semis

Tuesday 16th November, 03:50 PM JST

GUANGZHOU, China —

Over 100-kg national champion Kazuhiko Takahashi and compatriots Hiroaki Hiraoka and Tomoko Fukumi reached the judo semifinals at the Asian Games on Tuesday. Takahashi was awarded an ippon victory over Khaled Nabeel D. Hussain Alaraifi on four ‘‘shido’’ or warnings to his Bahrain opponent in his first match before securing a place in the open category semifinals with an inner leg trip win over Mongolia’s Munkhbaatar Khadbaatar.
World bronze medalist Hiroaki Hiraoka battled through a scoreless overtime match against Eisa Majrashi of Saudi Arabia, winning a 2-1 referees’ decision to make the 60-kg semis.
He had used his hip techniques to throw over Edil Bekkulov Kyrgyzstan and Syria’s Fadi Darwich in his earlier two matches.
In the women’s 48-kg, Fukumi, the world silver medalist, used her mat techniques for an ippon win over Leong Siupou of Macao and pinned North Korean Hwang Ryu Ok to make the top four.
But in the over 100 kg, Megumi Tachimoto tasted defeat in her first match against defending champion Liu Huanyuan of China and will redeem herself in the repechage round against Sol Kyong of North Korea, the 70 kg silver medalist here.
Japan hopes to surpass South Korea in the judo medal tally as both countries currently tie with six gold, two silver and three bronze after three days.