3 YAMAGUCHI WRESTLERS WIN IN FS AT NAT’L SPORTS FESTIVAL

SHUNAN, Yamaguchi (October 2-3) – Takao Isokawa won his fifth overall Kokutai crown as three wrestlers from host prefecture Yamaguchi prevailed in the men's freestyle finals at the National Sports Festival.

Isokawa, a staff member at Tokuyama University, won the 96kg title at Shinnanyo gymnasium for his fourth straight title in Japan's annual multi-sport event, modeled after the Olympic Games and called "Kokutai" by the Japanese.

Joining Isokawa as victors for the host prefecture were first-time winner Yasuhiro Morita (55kg) and defending champ Takafumi Kojima (66kg), a silver medalist at the 2006 Asian Games.

At 120kg, world team member Nobuyoshi Arakida defeated last year's world team representative Takahiro Shimonaka to add the freestyle crown to the Kokutai greco-roman title he won a year ago.

In the high school division, Youth Olympics champion Yuki Takahashi won his second straight festival crown at 55kg and was joined by fellow high school national champions Hirotaka Abe (50kg) and Koki Yamamoto (96kg) as Kokutai champs.

Individual champions were:

Men's freestyle, senior division

55kg – Yasuhiro Morita, Yamaguchi

60kg – Shogo Maeda, Aichi

66kg – Takafumi Kojima, Yamaguchi

74kg – Sosuke Takatani, Kyoto

84kg – Naoki Monma, Akita

96kg – Takao Isokawa, Yamaguchi

120kg – Nobuyoshi Arakida, Aomori

High school division

50kg – Hirotake Abe, Ibaraki

55kg – Yuki Takahashi, Mie

60kg – Kazuma Ito, Kyoto

66kg – Yoshitsugu Yamagata, Kanagawa

74kg – Shota Shirai, Tokyo

84kg – Yasunori Yoshioka, Saitama

96kg – Koki Yamamoto, Saitama

120kg – Yuto Ikeda, Aichi

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