Half-Lightweight (≤66 kilograms), Men

The last two World Championships had been won by Iran’s Arash Miresmaeili. But at the weigh-in he was two full kilograms over the class limit, and was disqualified. The Iranian News Agency quoted Miresmaeli as saying he had done this deliberately, rather than face his first-round opponent, Israel’s Ehud Vaks. On his return home, Miresmaeli was given $125,000, the amount given to Iranian gold medal winners, and a ticket to visit Mecca. The Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted then Iranian President Mohammad Khatami as saying, “Miresmaeili’s actions would be recorded in the history of Iranian glories.” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the mayor of Tehran, and later Iran’s President, said that although Miresmaeili “did not get a gold medal, he earned eternal honor by his refusal.” The International Judo Federation investigated this incident, but strangely, when they did so, Miresmaeli claimed he had made no such statements and no sanction was given. Miresmaeli did compete at the 2008 Olympic Games, after winning bronze medals at the 2005 and 2007 World Championships, but finished only =9th.

In his absence there was no favorite in Athina and no real story to the competition. Japan’s Masato Uchishiba, who had won at the World University Games in 2001, won the gold medal. In 2008 he would return to defend his gold medal, after winning a silver at the 2005 Worlds. In February 2013 Uchishiba was convicted of raping a student he had been coaching. The incident occurred in 2011 and Uchishiba maintained that it was consensual sex, but the court ruled that he had assaulted her while she was alseep and he was sentenced to five years in prison.