After a triumphant first day, Italy remains without medals on day 2 and is overtaken by Japan at the top of the provisional medal table of the 2024 World Judo Championships, currently taking place at the Mubadala Arena in Abu Dhabi. The only Italian capable of reaching the Final Block today was unfortunately defeated in the final for bronze, still gaining a precious fifth place in Olympic terms.
Let’s talk about Matteo Pirasprotagonist of an exhilarating journey in the preliminaries of the -66kg and then gave way in the 3rd/5th place play-off to Georgian Vazha Margvelashvili. The other bronze up for grabs in the category was awarded to the surprising Finn Luukas Saha (dominated in the quarterfinals by Piras but good at restarting from recoveries), while the final saw the victory of 22 year old Ryoma Tanaka over Takeshi Takeoka in the Japanese derby.
Subsequently, the final stages of the show took place female category -57 kgwith the young South Korean Mimi Huh (born 2002) who won his first world title by regulating the Canadian champion by the sum of penalties Christa Deguchi after over 8 minutes of Golden Score. Bitter bronze for the other Canadian Jessica Klimkaitnumber 2 in the ranking, who lost the very tough internal ballot with Deguchi for the Olympic selection, while the Japanese also climbed to the third step of the podium Momo Tamaoki.
Judo, Matteo Piras loses the playoff for bronze and finishes fifth in the -66 kg at the World Championships
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Last pyrotechnic act in the -73kgwith the Azerbaijani number 1 in the world Hidayat Heydarov who respected the prediction of the day before obtaining the first senior world championship seal of his career. An ippon with 10 seconds to go was decisive while he was trailing against the Japanese Tatsuki Ishihara, who was now anticipating the gold medal. Bronze to the Swiss Nils Stump and the Mongolian Ankhzaya Lavjargal.
