Spanish judoka Francisco Garrigos removed his blade from the referee’s orders and continued to hold the choke hold. That was enough for him to a controversial victory over Japan’s Ryuju Nagayama.
The most talked about situation of the weekend of the Paris Olympics judo tatami was seen on Saturday in the quarter-finals of the 60 kg category by the Spanish by Francisco Garrigos and Japanese Ryuju Nagayama between.
Garrigos won with an ippon by strangulation after two minutes of the match. Nagayama was able to defend against Garrigos and the referee of the match gave the matte order that was visible and audible in the TV pictures. At this point, the judoka should let go of the grip.
However, Garrigos continued to strangle Nagayama for several seconds until he lost consciousness. The referee declared Garrigos the winner, which Nagayama did not digest. He demanded a video review, but to no avail. Nagayama refused to shake Garrigos’ hand or leave the mat.
Urheilu’s judo expert Tommi Valtonen considers the situation one of the biggest injustices in judo’s Olympic history.
– First of all, Garrigos’ trick is completely outrageous, completely against the values of judo. He has been holding the stranglehold for a long time and nothing has happened. After the referee’s hand signal, he continues for a couple of seconds and the referee comes to say to let go. Garrigos still doesn’t let go and continues for 4-5 seconds. Nagayama clearly stops defending and when he gets up, he loses consciousness, Valtonen opens.
The Mexican judge also fell into mistakes Elizabeth Gonzalez.
– In Judo, if you lose consciousness, then you lose, it’s quite natural. In principle, that should be announced there first, but the situation could have been corrected with a video, says Valtonen.
Nagayama demanded a video review after the match, but the requests fell on deaf ears. In Valtonen’s opinion, there were other things to criticize in the judge’s actions.
– His approach was really soft. He says stop at first, but just watches as Garrigos doesn’t stop choking. At that point, you should have shouted again, Valtonen states.
Valtonen reminds that loss of consciousness itself is quite common in judo, but from the point of view of a normal spectator, the situation looks wild when the strangulation continues five seconds after being told to stop.
Despite everything, the day ended on a happy note for both Garrigos and Nagayama, as both eventually bagged Olympic bronze through the collection rounds.
Kazakhstan won the 60-kilogram Olympic gold Yeldos Smetovwho defeated Garrigos in the semifinals.