Half-Heavyweight (≤100 kilograms), Men

In the half-heavyweight category, Japan found the road to victory again. None of the 2016 Rio medallists returned to defend their success in this class, but gold medallist Czech Lukáš Krpálek moved up one class to 100kg+, and repeated his feat. Second seed Aaron Wolf, the son of an American father but born and raised in Japan by his Japanese mother, took the gold. At World Championships, he took gold in 2017 and bronze in 2019. Wolf was trained at the Kōdōkan, the world’s oldest and most prestigious Dojo (judo school). He notably defeated the top seed and 2016 silver medallist Varlam Lip’art’eliani at his third Olympics by Waza-ari (half point). The final against Korean Jo Gu-Ham was described as epic. Both had received two Shidos (penalties) when Wolf finally threw his opponent with an O-uchi-gari (inner leg sweep) for an Ippon (full point) after 9:35 min.

Lip’art’eliani eventually went home empty handed after losing the bronze medal match against surprise winner Niyaz Ilyasov from the Russian Olympic Committee, following a long video review of the decisive score. The second bronze was clinched by reigning world champion Jorge Fonseca from Portugal in the repêchage after losing to Jo.