#WrestleTokyo

#WrestleTokyo Olympic Games Preview: 68kg

Friday, July 23, 2021 - 20:26 By Ken Marantz

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TOKYO, Japan (July 23) -- Many athletes might cringe at the near-monastic life awaiting them under the harsh pandemic protocols at the Olympics. Tamyra MENSAH-STOCK (USA) can't wait. 

"I'm going to be fine," Mensah-Stock told the Japanese press at the U.S. team's pre-Olympic camp in central Japan. "I'm a homebody. I play video games, I karaoke, I literally stay at home when I'm in the States. This is what I love. This is perfect."

That only spells more trouble for the others in the women's 68kg weight class, where the 28-year-old Mensah-Stock heads into her Olympic debut in Tokyo as the reigning world champion and the No. 1 seed, and on quite a roll. 

Mensah-Stock's main competition looks to come from unseeded opponents -- the two fifth-place finishers at the 2019 World Championships, Alla CHERKASOVA (UKR) and 2016 Rio Olympic champion Sara DOSHO (JPN), as well as Asian qualifier Feng ZHOU (CHN) and two-time former world champion Battsetseg SORONZONBOLD (MGL), a bronze medalist at the 2012 London Olympics.

Since her triumph at the 2019 worlds in Nur-Sultan, Mensah-Stock has lost just one match in international competition. 

After winning all three of her matches at the 2019 World Cup, she finished second at 2020 Matteo Pellicone tournament. In Rome, Mensah-Stock defeated both Blessing OBORUDUDU (NGR) and Koumba LARROQUE (FRA) -- who are the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds in Tokyo, respectively -- en route to the final, where she dropped a 8-8 decision to China's Zhou after leading 8-0 with two minutes to go. 

The American rebounded from that setback with titles at the 2020 and 2021 Pan American Championships, which sandwiched golds at the Grand Prix de France and the Matteo Pellicone in 2021.

Although Mensah-Stock goes in as the favorite, she knows she can't take anything for granted. 

"I just have to stay tough and have a strong mindset," she said. "I wouldn't say I'm worried about all of them, but I've got to stay on my guard. Because at any point in time, something can happen." 

Asked what drives her to seek the gold medal, she replied, "I need to showcase what I have. God has given me so much talent, I have to go out there and showcase what he has given me, and I feel like he has given me enough talent to reach gold. So I've got to go and shine my light, just blind everybody with all my talent, if I can."

Naturally optimistic and outgoing, Mensah-Stock took the postponement of the Olympics in stride. 

"I was bummed, but I knew that it was only going to be postponed, I knew it wasn't going to be canceled," she said. "So I was actually kind of happy as well, because I got spend more time with my husband and my dogs, and see my family a lot more. So it was kind of a super-vacation."

Her main rival for the gold at Makuhari Messe will likely be Dosho, who seemed to be cruising toward a succession of global titles when she suffered a serious left shoulder injury during a victory over Danielle LAPPAGE (CAN) at the 2018 World Cup that required surgery.

That kept the 26-year-old Japanese from defending the world title she had won the previous year, and even when she came back at the Japan championships at the end of 2018, she was not the force she once was, being reticent to use her left arm. 

At the 2019 World Championships, Dosho hardly looked like an Olympic champion. She was completely overpowered by Mensah-Stock in a 10-1 drubbing in the quarterfinals, then squeaked by Oborududu in the repechage to make it to the bronze-medal match, where she lost 4-1 to Anna SCHELL (GER). 

She could have clinched the Olympic berth she earned for Japan at Nur-Sultan by winning the national title in 2019, but suffered a left knee injury just before the tournament, and was unceremoniously ousted 9-2 by Miwa MORIKAWA (JPN) in the semifinals.

Her Olympic fate hung on a playoff between her and Morikawa, held in March 2020, which Dosho managed to win 3-1. Dosho then became one of those athletes who benefitted from the postponement of the Tokyo Games, because it gave her time for all of her injuries to heal. 

"I was able to change my outlook, thinking this is a chance for my injuries to heal and to build up strength for the Olympics," Dosho told the Japan federation website. 

Now healthy and with an expanded repertoire beyond the quick double-leg tackle she learned at the kids wrestling club run by late father of Saori YOSHIDA (JPN), Dosho heads into the Tokyo Olympics with renewed confidence.

"The previous time [in Rio] was my first Olympics and I just rolled with the punches," Dosho said. "I had no problems and I was able to easily qualify. This time, it didn't go like that. I thought, 'This was really tough.' But through my losses, I was able to get a true feel for my weaknesses, and I could think about what I need to do to win the next time. I feel I've really grown."

Prior to her loss in Nur-Sultan, Dosho had not tasted defeat since the 2015 World Championships, where she lost in the quarterfinals to Zhou before taking the bronze medal. She avenged that loss in the semifinals at the 2017 Asian Championships en route to the gold, and again in the final at the 2019 Asian Championships. 

Asked to comment about a possible clash with Dosho, Mensah-Stock deferred. "Let's let the wrestling do all the talking," she said. "I don't really have any comments about any of my competitors. Let's just get out there, wrestle clean, wrestle hard, wrestle smart."

The 32-year-old Cherkasova, who will be appearing in her second Olympics, won the 2018 world title that Dosho missed, defeating Larroque in the final as Zhou and Mensah-Stock shared the bronze medals.

From 2017 up to the 2019 World Championships, Cherkasova medaled at 12 consecutive tournaments, but missed a bronze medal in Nur-Sultan when Soronzonbold scored a defensive takedown with 45 seconds left for a 2-2 win. 

She has had mediocre run-up to Tokyo, however, as all she has to show from four tournaments is a bronze medal at the 2020 European Championships. At the 2020 Matteo Pellicone tournament, she lost to Zhou in the quarterfinals and Lappage in the repechage. 

The 31-year-old Soronzonbold's better days appear to be behind her, but experience means she can never be fully discounted. Her world titles came back in 2010 and 2015, the latter with a win in the final over Risako KAWAI (JPN) who would go on to win the Olympic gold the following year. 

China's Feng, 27, qualified for her second Olympics by winning the Asian Olympic qualifying tournament in April, which she preceded with a gold at the 2019 World Military Games and her victory over Mensah-Stock in the 2020 Matteo Pellicone final. She has two world medals, a bronze in 2018 and a silver in 2015. 

Larroque, 22, is also a two-time world medalist. Having earned her ticket to Tokyo at the European Olympic qualifying tournament, she heads there on a bit of a roll, having won the European and Poland Open titles this year, the latter coming in a field that included eight entries at the Tokyo Olympics. 

68kg
No. 1 Tamyra Mariama STOCK MENSAH (USA)
No. 2 Blessing OBORUDUDU (NGR)
No. 3 Koumba Selene Fanta LARROQUE (FRA)
No. 4 Anna Carmen SCHELL (GER)
Agnieszka Jadwiga WIESZCZEK KORDUS (POL)
Battsetseg SORONZONBOLD (MGL)
Alla CHERKASOVA (UKR)
Sara DOSHO (JPN)
Enas Mostafa Youssef Khourshed AHMED (EGY)
Danielle Suzanne LAPPAGE (CAN)
Yudari SANCHEZ RODRIGUEZ (CUB)
Khanum VELIEVA (RUS)
Feng ZHOU (CHN)
Meerim ZHUMANAZAROVA (KGZ)
Mimi HRISTOVA (BUL)
Elis MANOLOVA (AZE)

Japan Wrestling

Shozo Sasahara, 1956 Olympic champion and former Japan federation president, dies at 93

Monday, March 6, 2023 - 18:27 By Ken Marantz

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TOKYO (March 6) --- Hall of Famer Shozo SASAHARA, a gold medalist at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics who went on to become president of the Japan Wrestling Federation and an executive of FILA, the predecessor of UWW, has died of natural causes, the Japan federation announced on Monday. He was 93.

Sasahara, who had suffered a stroke in 2014, won the gold medal in the featherweight class (62kg) of freestyle at the Melbourne Games, where he  served as flag-bearer for Japan in the opening ceremony. Two years earlier, he had won the gold at the World Championships held in Tokyo.

Sasahara became renowned for his pioneering use of legs in what is today referred to as a grapevine, but was reverently termed by the English-speaking press in his prime as "Sasahara's Leg Scissors."

Those would be his lone international triumphs, as he was a late bloomer who only started wrestling after entering Chuo University in Tokyo, having previously competed in judo. He retired after the Melbourne Olympics and would have a long career in business and sports governing.

"He was always a leader in the sports world with ideas and actions that were ahead of the times," current JWF President Hideaki TOMIYAMA said in a statement. "As a wrestler, he was adored by many people from around the world as a pioneer of techniques. It is sad not only for wrestling, but the sports world. I would like to express my sincere condolences."

Sasahara was the national team performance enchancement director when Japan won five gold medals at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and four at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He served as JWF president from 1989 to 2003, and was a director at FILA from 1972 to 1993, during which time he also served as a vice-president.

Sasahara also held the post of vice-president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, and was awarded the Olympic Silver Order by the International Olympic Committee in 1995.

Sasahara was born on July 28, 1929, in Yamagata, the capital city of Yamagata Prefecture in the cold-weather Tohoku region of northern Japan.

According to an account he penned himself in 2005 for a Japan Olympic Committee website series titled "Japanese Olympian Spirits," he said he was in the sixth year of elementary school when World War II broke out, and that inspired him to want a career in international trade, so he enrolled in Yamagata Commercial School for his junior and high school years.

His home was in the north part of the city and the school was four kilometers away in the south. In his third year, he started working at an aircraft factory, which was also four kilometers from his home, so every day for five years until graduation, he had an eight-kilometer round-trip walk. As he needed to learn English, he would carry flash cards and study them as he walked.

At school, judo, kendo (Japanese fencing), and swordsmanship were regular parts of the curriculum, and there was also military training, such as throwing grenades. After the war ended, he would visit a nearby U.S. military base, where he was able to practice his English on a native speaker for the first time, and eventually got a part-time job there.

While at school, Sasahara joined the town's judo club. There, an older teammate said that the university he went to did not have a judo club, so he had switched to wrestling. The friend said Sasahara was perfect for the sport and urged him to try it. Using money he saved from the job on the U.S. base -- and without telling his parents -- he went down to Tokyo to take the entrance exam for Chuo.

As a freshman in the spring of 1950, he started his wrestling career. His first impression of wrestling at Chuo was not good. Blood was splattered on the canvas mat and it smelled of sweat. The mat was hard and wrestlers would sometimes be knocked out. Anyone who skipped practice would be found and beaten. As he had not yet learned the techniques and wasn't physically strong, he thought many times of quitting.

But he didn't give up, and instead drove himself to become better and better. In his second year, he made the finals of several collegiate tournaments, which further encouraged him to  put his full energy into the sport. He would sneak into the other powerhouses of the day, Waseda and Meiji universities, to observe the practices and techniques, and read books written by U.S. coaches. Wrestling became a 24-hour-a-day obsession.

In 1953, he won his first title at the All-Japan Championships, as well as the national collegiate title. After graduating, he captured the world title in May 1954, beating 1952 Helsinki Olympic champion Bayram SIT (TUR), then successfully defended his All-Japan crown.

Sasahara went to Melbourne confident of victory. Japan had only been let back into the Olympics four years earlier in Helsinki, but FILA had been among the first of the individual sports organizations to readmit the nation, in 1949.

International exchanges resumed in 1951. Japanese wrestling was still in the developmental stage, but federation chief Ichiro HATTA saw the exchanges as the optimal path to getting stronger.  Among those who went on a wrestling tour to the United States was Shohachi ISHII, who became Japan's first-ever Olympic wrestling gold medalist in Helsinki. His success, and the speedy moves he brought back from America, served to inspire Sasahara and the others. "If he could do it, we can, too," Sasahara thought.

The team also did tours of the other wrestling powers -- Russia, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania -- and Sasahara absorbed it all, which would pay off in gold in Melbourne.

After his triumph, Sasahara, then 27, decided to retire, as he felt he had reached his limit. He noted that it was also a clean way to go out -- from his first All-Japan title to that point, he had won exactly 200 straight matches. He pursued his career in international trade, spending time in America and later importing sporting goods. He was the first to import sports drinks into Japan.

He also got involved in sports organization. He put Japan wrestling's flop at the 1960 Rome Olympics down to poor training and nutrition, which would lead to him to help establish a government-back organization in 1976 to improve the general health and conditioning of athletes.

In one of his last public appearances, Sasahara donated his Olympic gold medal to his high school alma mater in October 2018.