Kiyomi Watanabe suffered a familiar fate in her second Olympic judo campaign for the Philippines as she exits Paris in the women’s -63kg Round of 32.
Filipina judoka Kiyomi Watanabe has bowed out of the Paris Olympics after being beaten by China’s Tang Jing via ippon in the women’s -63kg Round of 32 at the Champ-de-Mars Arena in Paris.
World No. 22 Jing took down Watanabe 10 seconds into the contest, which set the foundation for her eventual victory despite the Filipina’s good ground defense early on.
At around the 3:28 mark, Jing secured a kuzure-kesa-gatame, or a side control hold on Watanabe to pin her down on the mat. The Filipina would be unable to escape for the next 20 seconds, which resulted in an ippon for her Chinese foe 51 seconds into the bout.
In Japanese martial arts, the ippon is the highest score a competitor may receive and is awarded for either a perfect throw, pinning an opponent for 20 seconds, or forcing an opponent into submission via choke, or arm lock among others. In the Olympics, scoring an ippon results in an instant victory for any judoka.
This marked Kiyomi Watanabe’s second-straight Olympic campaign for the Philippines, qualifying via the continental quota. However, she was unable to improve on her debut in Tokyo, where she also fell via ippon to Spain’s Cristina Cabana Perez in the round of 32.
Still, Watanabe remains accomplished in her sport, being the first-ever Filipina Olympic judoka. Alongside her pair of Olympic runs, Watanabe is also a silver medalist in the Asian Games and has won four consecutive Southeast Asian Games golds from 2013 to 2019.
Banner Image from AFP.
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