Kim, currently ranked 1st in the world in the unlimited weight class Riner, 3 golds and 2 bronzes in 4 Olympics, high possibility of facing in the finals If he wins, Korean judo wins gold medal for the first time in 12 years.
South Korea Judo national team member Kim Min-jong (top) is using a horizontal press technique against his training partner at the Jincheon Athletes’ Village in Chungcheongbuk-do Province ahead of the Paris Olympics. Kim Min-jong won the final of the unlimited weight class (over 100 kg) at this year’s World Judo Championships with this technique.
Kim Min-jong (24), a member of the Korean Judo team, will go hunting for a gold medal in the men’s unlimited weight class (over 100 kg)
at the Paris Olympics on the 2nd. Judo (11) is the sport in which Korea has won the most gold medals at the Summer Olympics, following archery (27) and taekwondo (12). However, the streak of gold medals has been broken since Kim Jae-beom (men’s 81 kg class) and Song Dae-nam (men’s 90 kg class) won them at the 2012 London Games. The judo team declared their determination to “win a gold medal with the spirit of ‘Su-sa-bul-pae (even if it means dying, we will not lose)” ahead of this Olympics, but they have not yet achieved their goal.
Kim Min-jong was eliminated in the round of 16 in Tokyo three years ago, which was his first Olympic stage. However, the Kim Min-jong of then and the Kim Min-jong of now are players of different ‘levels’. Kim Min-jong won the International Judo Federation (IJF) World Championships in May of this year. It has been 39 years since a Korean male unlimited weight class athlete won a gold medal at the World Championships since Cho Yong-chul (63), the current president of the Korea Judo Association, in 1985. Kim Min-jong is currently ranked first in the world in this weight class. If Kim Min-jong wins this Olympics, he will be the first Korean male unlimited weight class athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. Of the seven weight classes for men in the Olympics, Korean judo has failed to win a gold medal only in the unlimited weight class.
The candidate to compete with Kim Min-jong for the gold medal is Teddy Riner (35), also known as ‘Big Ted’, from the host country France. Riner is a star athlete representing France, having been the torch lighter at the opening ceremony of this Olympics with former French track and field sprinter Marie-José Perec (56). The Paris Olympic Organizing Committee has classified the men’s unlimited weight class event as a ‘High Demand Event’, which is unusual for a judo event. This is to limit the number of reporters entering the stadium in case the competition for coverage becomes too intense.
To Kim Min-jong, Riner is literally a ‘mountain to climb’. Although both unlimited weight class athletes, Riner (203 cm, 140 kg) is 20 cm taller and 10 kg heavier than Kim Min-jong (183 cm, 130 kg). Kim Min-jong and Riner are on opposite sides of the bracket, so both athletes must advance to the finals to face each other.
Riner’s athletic career is already enough to be called ‘legendary’. Having competed in five consecutive Olympics since the 2008 Beijing Games, Riner won this weight class twice in a row in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. He only won a bronze medal in the individual event at the 2021 Tokyo Games, but he won a gold medal in the mixed team event. Riner has won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the Olympics. He has also won the individual event at the World Championships 11 times.
Kim Min-jong lost to Riner in the final of the Paris Grand Slam this year, giving up half of the game with a back-and-forth kick in the golden score (extra time). This is the first and last time the two players have faced each other. Kim Min-jong said, “Although I lost, the strategy worked well and it was better than I thought,” and added, “It was a good opportunity to practice before the Olympics. I will definitely catch Riner at the Olympics by using that feeling.” 카지노사이트