Ryuga Tanaka became the third Japanese Junior World Champion at day two in Guayaquil’s Junior World Championships. Tanaka had to struggle hard through a long golden score against Kote Kapanadze (GEO).
Kapanadze was not the last Georgian of the day that he met, because to win the gold medal he still had one mountain to dominate, in the name of Giorgi Terashvili; a mountain quite simply because even if he was not one of the seeds of the competition, Terashvili has already made a name for himself among the seniors by winning the Antalya Grand Slam in April.
Marcin Kowalski (POL) and Kote Kapanadze (GEO) are among those juniors that we have not yet seen on the world circuit and that we discover with pleasure here in Ecuador.
Without reference among seniors, they are nonetheless valiant fighters who will soon be pointing the tip of their noses in the older category. In Guayaquil, we will remember that one of them stepped on to the podium but this is only a step in their young sports careers. The match started with at a pretty high pace and half way through, nobody could tell who would win.
Kapanadze looked a bit tired though and during an attack-counterattack phase, Kowalski took the lead sending Kapanadze to the ground with a powerful o-uchi-gari after a beautiful change in direction. The bronze medal was for Kowalski, whose coach was ecstatic, maybe even more than his athlete, for this great performance.
