Matsumoto ends Japan's judo gold medal drought

Congrats Kaori on winning gold!

Awesome!

What in intimidating competitor on the mat Matsumoto is! Intense!

Olympic reportings are nice averting Japanese fearmongering medias do not have much space to report anti-nuclear demonstrations around the diet.

She literally eyed on Gold !

her pre-match routines were intimidating! she looked like a woman possessed. but congrats on getting the first gold for japan. well-deserved medal.

Good for her! Well done!

She surely was intense and focused on her matches! Congratulations!

Japan have the reigning world champions in the three lightest women’s weights but her team-mates Tomoko Fukumi and Misato Nakamura had failed to deliver here in the under-48kg and under-52kg categories respectively.

Added to that, Matsumoto had been selected ahead of world champion Aiko Sato, just as her two other fellow Olympians had been picked over team-mates who were either world champions or number one in the world rankings.

Am I reading this right? The first paragraph quoted here makes it sound or implies as if all three of these women are the reigning world champions in their weight categories, thus the pressure and expectation to win being high.

But the 2nd paragraph debunks that.

Good on ya, gal! Now, another 15 golds to go!

At least she smiles.

Kaori for PM!

Congrats to her and the Japan team on their first gold!

Are there any other countries in the Olympics? I can't tell from watching NHK.

Mike.

Try other channels apart from NHK, lots of coverage.

O><o oh yeah japan!

She's a total monster though...I don't think anyone could have beaten her.

Are there any other countries in the Olympics? I can't tell from watching NHK.

I guess you missed the NHK showing of the US-France basketball game, or the Brazil-Belarus soccer match on NHK-BS1, or the Honduras-Spain soccer match. Lots of other teams and sports have been highlighted. They even show many swimming heats that don't include Japanese athletes participating in them.

She's a total monster though...I don't think anyone could have beaten her.

She didn't beat the Romanian. The Romanian beat herself...

Mike's right, Japan-a-lympics is pretty heavily leaned to Japan events.

Ebisen's right, The Romanian beat herself.

I liked her better, also the match that she, Caprioriu, had Before Matsumoto with the Hungarian was better imo. Also, tho bothe were dead tired, the match w/the Hungarian went into overtime, and went the full 3 mins of overtime. Caprioriu might've won against Matsumoto if not exhausted.

Whatever, imo the judo matches this time are even more avoidance based pushing matches than before, and not very interesting.

Lowly, negative much? Every country will focus their Olympic coverage on the home athletes, it's what most the locals want and it's also respectful to give your home athletes this coverage. Also, I'm kind of disappointed the Romanian disqualified herself before Matsumoto could beat her. Matsumoto was clearly the stronger and more aggressive player in that match and she was out to win it. Love it!

Are there any other countries in the Olympics? I can't tell from watching NHK.

Japan-a-lympics is pretty heavily leaned to Japan events.

NHK and other Japanese newscasts usually don't mention the other medalists in the events Japanese athletes win medals, in individual events. A standard line is: "Taro Suzuki won the silver in the XXX event." So who won the gold and bronze? Doesn't matter. If the competitor isn't Japanese, they don't get mentioned, as if their sole reason for existence is to serve as a nameless sparring partner for the Japanese athlete.

The exception is for super-super stars like Phelps or that Chinese swimmer, who get the occasional mention.

"illegal attack from behind"

Heck, if attacks from behind were illegal in sumo, we wouldn't have any okuri-dashi wins!