News
Sakamoto unseats Athens silver medalist Icho in 51-kg
Ken Marantz / Daily Yomiuri Sportswriter 6/24/05
Fate stepped in and gave Hitomi Sakamoto a hand. Or in this case, a leg.
Sakamoto knocked Athens Olympic silver medalist Chiharu Icho off Japan's team to this autumn's world wrestling championships, winning a playoff for the 51-kilogram slot on Thursday at Tokyo's Yoyogi No. 2 Gym.
The playoff was held following the men's national invitational championships, where 60-kg Athens bronze medalist Kenji Inoue fell in the semifinals, a victim of the same fate as Icho, also the world champion in 2003.
Sakamoto, helped by a rule change that put her in an advantageous position, scored the winning takedown five seconds into overtime of the third period to defeat Icho and avenge a loss at last March's Queen's Cup.
With the victory, Sakamoto joined younger sister Makiko on the Japan squad to the world championships in Budapest in September.
"Even with my world titles, this is the happiest I've felt after a match," said Sakamoto, who has been plagued by serious knee injuries since winning world golds in 2000 and 2001.
The injuries caused Sakamoto to sit out last year's Olympic trials, in which Icho defeated Makiko Sakamoto, also in a playoff, in the 48-kg class to make the team for the inaugural women's Olympic wrestling competition.
Makiko Sakamoto clinched her spot on the squad to Budapest by winning both the All-Japan and Queen's Cup titles at 48 kg.
On Thursday, Hitomi Sakamoto was determined not to repeat her mistakes from the Queen's Cup, when Icho used her counter style of wrestling for a decisive victory.
Sakamoto's strategy of being less reckless on her takedown attempts worked and the match ended up tied after the final of the three periods.
"Makiko would wrestle like [Icho] in practice," Sakamoto said. "I was confident coming here."
In the overtime period, Sakamoto got the break she needed.
The competition was the first to use new regulations in both freestyle and Greco-Roman adopted by FILA, the sport's world governing body, to liven things up by increasing scoring.
In freestyle, if there is no score in one of the best-of-three periods, a coin toss puts one wrestler in a single-leg tackle position, a decided advantage. The wrestler then has 30 seconds to score; if they fail, the defender gets a point.
This format replaced the tie-breaking clinch, in which both wrestlers started with their hands locked behind the other's back and was more a test of strength and less of skill.
Winning the toss, Sakamoto, who anticipated being in this situation and worked on it in practice, needed just seconds to complete the takedown.
"That was a little lucky," Sakamoto said. "I knew I could get the points then."
Icho was
In the men's tournament, Inoue's doom was sealed when he twice came up on the wrong side of the coin.
Both of the first two periods of his semifinal against Kenichi Yumoto ended scoreless. The coin tosses both went Yumoto's way, and he converted both into takedowns to win the match.
"It's hard to take when it's decided by a coin toss," said Inoue, the surprise bronze medalist in Athens who has yet to win his first Japan national championship. "But that's the rule and I didn't score any points."
Yumoto went on to defeat Noriyuki Takatsuka in the final--again winning a coin toss in the decisive second period.
Yumoto then earned a ticket to Budapest by beating All-Japan champion Takaoka Kojima in a playoff, although this time he lost a coin toss, but managed to reverse the tide and score off his opponent.
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Commonwealth Amateur Wrestling Association
6/28/05
India, the defending Commonwealth team champion will be hard pressed by Canada, Pakistan, Nigeria and host South Africa.
Cape Town, South Africa. – The 2005 Commonwealth Wrestling Championships in Freestyle for men and women and Greco-Roman for men are to begin in a few days. The championships will be held on June 30 – July 2 in the gymnasium at University of Stellenbosch in the town of Stellenbosch, one of the oldest towns in South Africa. Stellenbosch is located some 40km from Cape Town among the rolling hills in the centre of South Africa’s famous wine district.
In addition to the original 11 Commonwealth wrestling nations that confirmed their participation previously, Cameroon, Uganda and Gambia have now indicated to the organizing committee that they will also take part in the 2005 Championships.
The first team that arrived yesterday was New Zealand team. Team coach Kevin Mclaughlan is optimistic about his teams chances by saying “ we have a young team with a lot of potential and we came to wrestle tough and get medals at these Championships, we will wrestle both freestyle and Greco-Roman.”
The Commonwealth Amateur Wrestling Association secured the services previously of Momir Petkovic, USA assistant national Greco-Roman coach to conduct a Greco-Roman camp. In the last few days, the Commonwealth Association was also able to get the services of Victor Zilberman a Freestyle coach from Canada to do the Freestyle portion of the Commonwealth wrestling camp. Victor is a former World and Commonwealth medallist as well as a top Canadian wrestling coach, his athletes have won Olympic and World wrestling medals.
Most of the teams are to arrive on the 28th or 29th of June. The largest team will be from India, their team is the defending champion from the 2003 Commonwealth Championships. They have among their freestyle wrestlers a number of athletes that can win gold medals such as Palwinder Singh Cheema at 120kg, Kripa Shankar at 55kg, Sushil Kumar at 66kg and Anuj Kumar at 84kg. In women’s wrestling two ladies have proven themselves on the International wresting stage, they are Alka Tomar at 59kg and Geetika Jakhar at 63kg.
The Canadian wrestling team is to arrive today and is represented by Montreal Wrestling Club. The club is one of the best wrestling clubs in Canada and it is coached by Victor Zilberman. The Canadian wrestling team has a potential gold medallist among their roster in Tim Wadsworth at 66kg, Tyler Marghetis at 74kg and David Zilberman at 96kg. In womens section , Canada should win with Martine Dugrenier at 67kg. Martine is a national champion and a World Student Games champion.
A strong team from Nigeria is to challenge the powerhouses of Commonwealth wrestling of India and Canada.
The Pakistanis team is not a large team but it boasts three wrestlers who have the potential to upset the teams from India and Canada. Muhammad Umar at 96kg, Muhammad Ali at 74kg and Muhammas Bashir at 120kg of the Pakistan’s wrestling team have met the Indian wrestlers in the finals at the recent Punjab Games and all three have won gold medals.
Australias entries have a better chance to win medals in Greco-Roman style of wrestling with Vitaly Ogulev at 84kg and Hassan Shahshavan at 74kg.
The hosting nation of South Africa has also potential to win medals in a number of weight classes, but their best chance would be with Corne Erasmus at 74kg hailing from Bloemfontein in the Free State, Jacques Schoeman at 66kg from Evander in Mpumalanga, John Short at 96kg from Witbank in Mpumalanga.and Charl van Der Merweat at 60kg from Cape Town of the Western Province.
The South African Wrestling Federation president, Mr. Dave van der Merwe stated, “The 2005 Commonwealth Wrestling Championships is the largest wrestling event that is being hosted in the Cape Town region and the Organizing Committee and their Chairman, Mr Sakki Bosse is to be congratulated for hosting this International wrestling event in the Town of Stellenbosch”.
For further information – CONTACT: -
Mr. Sakki Bosse – Chairman, Organizing Committee
Tel:021 988 8790 (h) or Cell: 083 286 3241, and Fax: 086 671 3967
E-mail is - sbosse@mweb.co.za
OR
Mr. Josip Mrkoci – Chairman, Executive Committee
COMMONWEALTH AMATEUR WRESTLING ASSOCIATION
In Stellenbosch, South Africa – DORPSHUIS HOTEL – Room # 10
(27) 21-883 – 9881 or cell - 1- (519) 668-9901 it is Canadian number
Our WEB site – http://groups.msn.com/CommonwealthWrestling
E- mail: - Commonwealth-Wrestling@sympatico.ca