Bandaged judoka wins in face-off

Kim Jae-bum has defeated Wang Gi-chun in the 81-kg judo tournament.

Kim won against Wang in the semi-finals in the men’s 81-kg competition at the Judo Grand Prix 2014 held in Jeju on Friday.

Kim and Wang first met in the 73-kg class tournament to decide who would represent Korea, which was held in March 2007 in Pohang. Wang, a freshman at Yongin University at the time, defeated the then-strongest Lee Won-hee (now the women’s team coach) in the semi-finals then beat Kim Jae-bum in the finals to win.

Wang again in the final round of contests in June that year won against Kim, using a Tomoe-Nage technique, helping him to become the youngest Korean judoka to win in the World Judo championships in Rio de Janeiro. Following Lee, with the formidable foe of Wang Gi-chun, Kim raised his segment to the 81-kg event in October that year.

In a different segment, Kim won competition after competition. Following a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Kim won gold in London four years later. On the other hand, Wang, who won silver in Beijing, failed to medal in London. Thereafter, not performing as well as before, moved up in segment in November 2013.

Again they were in the same class, but did not meet each other in a competition for more than a year. Wang Gi-chun would lose early on, and when Wang won, Kim did not compete.

Their big match-up came in the sixth competition. Familiar with each other, both were cautious. Wang got a warning early on and thereafter neither were aggressive, getting two more warnings. In a tight spot, Wang attempted a Kosoto-gake with 19 seconds to the end but did not score. In this sequence, Kim got a head bang from Wang and cut his right forehead. Kim completed the match with a bandage.