PECS, Hungary (July 11-12) – Naoya NAKAMURA and So SAKABE earned bronze medals in the Greco-Roman events of the world university wrestling championships, Japan’s best performance at the world student meet since 2008.
Nakamura of Nippon Sports Sciences University rolled over Austrian junior world team member Stefan FUCHSREITER (AUT) by technical fall at 71kg for one bronze medal and Sakabe of Kanagawa University edged Aleksandr HENUVENIA (BLR), 5-2, for a bronze medal at 75kg.
Meanwhile, NSSU student Rikiya MATSUZAWA advanced to the bronze medal final at the 59kg but lost to 2013 European championships bronze medalist Fatih UCUNCU (TUR) by fall and had to settle for fifth place.
Japan’s two bronze medalists surpassed a lone bronze won at the 2013 World University Games, but fell short of a silver and bronze won by Kazuma KURAMOTO and Ryo MINEMURA, respectively, at the 2008 student championships.
Greco-Roman
59kg – MATSUZAWA, Rikiya (5th, 11 entries)
R1 – bye
R2 – df. Dmitri PYSLAR (UKR) by fall
SF – lost to Kanybek ZHOLCHUBEKOV (KGZ), 5-12
F3 – lost to Fatih UCUNCU (TUR) by fall
66kg – NAKAI, Kenta (7th, 16 entries)
R1 – df. Milan POPOVIC (SRB) by fall
R2 – lost to Nurtas UTEBERGENOV (KAZ), 6-10
71kg – NAKAMURA, Naoya (Bronze, 11 entries)
R1 – bye
R2 – df. Jacek MALISZEWSKI (POL) by TF, 10-1
SF – lost to Patrick SMITH (USA), 7-9
F3 – df. Stefan FUCHSREITER (AUT) by TF, 11-2
75kg – SAKABE, So (Bronze, 13 entries)
R1 – df. Petru SEVCIUC (MDA), 6-4
R2 – lost to Aleksander KUKHTA (UKR) by TF, 0-8
c1 – df. Francis WEINHOLD (GER), 2-1
F3 – df. Aleksander HENUVENIA (BLR), 5-2
80kg – MAETA, Yuya (9th, 9 entries)
R1 – bye
R2 – lost to Aslan ATEM (TUR) by TF, 0-8
c1 – Marius BRAUN (GER), 0-6
85kg – HOSHI, Shoya (9th, 10 entries)
R1 – bye
R2 – lost to Janos TOSI (HUN), 0-4
98kg – YONEHIRA, Yasuhiro (11th, 12 entries
R1 – lost to Felix RADINGER (GER), 0-1
130 – SONODA, Arata (8th, 8 entries)
R1 – lost to Boris VAINSTEYN (RUS), 0-2)
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