Fil-Japanese Mariya Takahashi bounced back from two elimination round losses with an ippon win over Thailand’s Surattana Thongsri today to retain the women’s -70 kg crown today.
This allowed Takahashi to keep her crown for the second time in the 30th Southeast Asian Games judo competitions at the Laus Convention Center in San Fernando, Pampanga.
After Takahashi bowed to Indonesia’s Gusti Kakihara in the round robin eliminations, she got past Thongsri at the 1:55 mark.
This handed the Philippines its third gold medal in judo in this regional biennial meet.
Thongsri won over Indonesia’s Gusti Kakihara via waza-ari in the second round robin bout.
Later, Kakihara prevailed over Takahashi via the second-highest score during the tiebreak.
The 18-year-old judoka saved Philippine judo’s medal hopes after three other local bets Ryoko Salinas, Shin Matsumura, and John Ferrer were eliminated.
Takahashi joined Tokyo 2020 Olympics hopeful Kiyomi Watanabe and Shugen Nakano in getting golds.
Thailand took its fourth gold medal off Santjadet Thontin in the women’s 78 kg class.
Thontin won via shido-hansokumake over Vietnam’s Nguyen Thi Nhu, and this put the Thai in the lead of the medal race in judo.
Indonesia is in second with three golds, a silver and bronze after Gede Soethama ruled the men’s 100-kg class via wazari-shido over Low Yilong of Singapore.
The Philippines is third (2-1-5).
