The Finnish judoka who was chasing a medal ended his World Championship career in a couple of minutes.
Fighting in a heavy series Martti Puumalainen The World Cup was over in two minutes.
The jury rejected the 26-year-old Finnish judoka in the second round match against the Azerbaijani Ushangi Kokauri against. The match was Puumalainen’s first of the Games, as he avoided the opening round with a free stroke.
The rejection came from three warnings that Puumalainen received for so-called false attacks that ended in tatami.
– It was a miserable show. We have to sit down with the coaching and think about what went wrong here, Puumalainen recounted the match to Urheilu on Friday evening.
The Puumalainen, who is 14th in the heavyweight world list and ninth in the Olympic rankings, said before the start of the World Championships in Qatar that he is aiming for a medal from the Games. A Finnish judoka has not won such a thing at the World Championship level in 42 years.
However, it quickly became clear that Puumalainen was not in the condition required to realize his dream.
– It was a very confident feeling to go to matzah. I was confident that I could handle this. But in the match I felt that I was too weak. I couldn’t match his power.
The dream of a medal came crashing down right in the opening match for Puumalainen and the Slovenian who coached him Rok for Draksic hard to swallow.
According to Puumalainen, the two were not in a chatty mood on the way from the match arena to the competition hotel.
– It is better that both swallow today. Both of them certainly still have a little emotional charge. Tomorrow we will have a substantive discussion.
– I trust the coaching, but now I have to think. Something clearly needs to change, Puumalainen said.
Rose is the only challenge
According to Puumalainen, the disappointment is great, especially because the preparation for the World Championships went almost completely as planned. He said that he suffered from a rosacea that appeared on his leg two months ago, which was however cured in a couple of weeks with a course of antibiotics.
– That was the only thing that didn’t work out. It couldn’t affect that much that the level is that. Something went wrong. I also have a place to look in the mirror.
Puumalainen estimates that his Olympic ranking (9th) will drop a couple of notches. However, the disappointment of the World Cup does not significantly affect the chances of a ticket to next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.
– The real year in the qualifiers only starts after Midsummer. So, as far as the Olympics are concerned, this wasn’t a terrible setback. I feel sad that I couldn’t perform better. It’s really upsetting, a little embarrassing to be honest. It was a classless performance, Puumalainen whipped himself.
– This is how I am measured as an athlete. This has to be turned into a profit somehow. Learn from this and get into the best shape of your career. Here we weigh what I am to my men.
A French sports legend was crowned heavyweight world champion Teddy Riner, for whom the World Championship title was already the ninth of his career. Before the World Championships, he was only 18th on the world list, i.e. four places below Puumai.