Three women's women's 63-kilogram champions, including Mirai Takaichi, who won the Grand Slam of Tokyo, an international judo competition, have been selected to represent Japan at next year's Paris Olympics.
Following the results of the Grand Slam Tokyo, an international judo tournament, the All Japan Judo Federation held a meeting on March 3 to discuss the representatives of the Paris Olympics in four weight classes: the women's 63 kg and 78 kg classes and the men's 60 kg and 100 kg classes.
As a result,
in the women's 4 kg class, Takaichi, who participated in two consecutive Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo, won this tournament, and in the women's 63 kg class, Rika Takayama,
who finished third.
▽ In the men's 2 kg class, it was announced that three new members of the national team, Tatsuki Nagayama, who defeated Naotoshi Takafuji to win the title, have been selected for the national team.
Takaichi was praised for winning the championship after winning a head-to-head match with Megumi Horikawa, who had been competing for the national team in the quarterfinals.
In the women's 78-kilogram class, Tokyo Olympics gold medalist Naosato Hamada missed out on a medal at this tournament, while Takayama was the only Japan athlete to win a medal.
In the men's 60 kg class, Nagayama was praised for winning all of his matches consistently, in addition to beating Takafuji in a head-to-head match.
On the other hand, the men's 100 kg class will be carried over and will be decided based on the results of the Grand Slam Paris to be held in February next year.
As a result, only the men's 2 kg class has not been announced as a representative of the 14 weight classes for men and women, and it is expected that it will be a contest between Michihiro Arai, who finished second this time, and Wolf Aron, the gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics.