Legends of Judo: How Anton Geesink changed the sport forever
CNN NEWS
(CNN)It was the moment that changed judo forever.
For so long the sport was the preserve of Japan, but Dutchman Anton Geesink broke the stranglehold by becoming the first non-Japanese judoka to win the World Championship in 1961.
The sport was invented in Japan in the 1880s and its judokas were pre-eminent.
When the first World Championships were staged in Tokyo in 1956, Japan's Shokichi Natsui upheld his country's honor.
At the second world event back in Tokyo in 1958, Koji Sone added Japan's second title.
But at the next World Championships three years later, Geesink struck.
Anton Geesink won gold at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo.
He had won bronze in 1956, but defeated Sone in the open class in Paris to shock the sport and open it up to the world.
Geesink followed up this feat by bagging gold on judo's Olympic debut at the 1964 Games in Tokyo. He beat Akio Kaminaga in front of his home crowd to cement his status as one of the best judokas of his generation.
He triumphed again, this time in the heavy class, at the fourth worlds in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1965. He was still the only non-Japanese gold medalist in any of the weight categories at world or Olympic level.
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