Kayla Harrison Wins First Ever USA Gold Judo

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/8/2/3215181/london-2012-olympics-kayla-harrison-wins-first-ever-usa-gold-judo
The United States has never won a gold medal in judo before - until today. Kayla Harrison capped off a spectacular day by scoring two yukos (to get an ippon win) inside four minutes against Gemma Gibbons of Great Britain in the finals.

How good was Kayla's day? She armbarred (juji gatame) the world and Olympic number one ranked competitor, Mayra Aguiar of Brazil in the semifinals - in less than five minutes. In her opening bout, she took less than a minute to armbar the world #16 and Olympic #14 ranked Russian, Vera Moskalyuk. Her next bout saw an o-soto-gari for ippon in roughly three minutes over Abigel Joo, the world #7 and Olympic #5 ranked player.

Not a bad day's work for the world's #2 ranked judoka under -78 KG and the 2010 world champion.

Her opponent Gemma Gibbons had to go through five matches and a similarly tough schedule (the world #3 and the world #5) to get to the finals. The GIFs of the match are below the jump and show what an athletic player Kayla can be.

Both moves Kayla used to score a yuko were based on the hip toss. Her first score of the match came at roughly a minute in with a tsuri goshi and her final score came at 3:54 with a kubi nage.

Thanks to Zombie Prophe, we can see her get the kubi nage. Due to her imperfect control of GIbbons, it is scored as a yuko and not as a full ippon - which is still enough to get her the win and the gold! Note Jimmy Pedro's celebration.


And we see her go into the crowd to celebrate:


And the triumphant return to the mats with the American flag.


This is a very exciting time for USA judo, with Marti Malloy achieving a bronze medal, Nick Delpopolo getting 7th and Travis Stevens getting 5th (arguably beating the silver medalist in the semi-finals).

I wanna see Harrison vs Rousey in Judo

Primetyme199 wrote:

I wanna see Harrison vs Rousey in Judo

Isn't Harrison a much larger woman? I'm not sure on the weight, but she looks to be pretty big. Also she is a Gold medalist and Ronda is only a Bronze. What what I have read Harrison was very impressive. I wanna see Harrison transfer to MMA.

Kayla won at 78kg which google tells me translates to 171.961 lbs. Ronda has slimmed down 135lbs but she competed at 70kg which google tells me is 154.324 lbs. So she seems to have a pretty good size advantage.

Rousey talks so much shit about her Judo, let's see her put it to the test. In BJJ they have the open weight that all weight classes can enter in. This would be the same thing.

Primetyme199 wrote:

Rousey talks so much shit about her Judo, let's see her put it to the test. In BJJ they have the open weight that all weight classes can enter in. This would be the same thing.

This woman has to be atleast 20lbs heavier then Rousey at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind someone finally knocking Ronda down a peg, just seems unlikely. She is probably closer to 30lbs heavier then Ronda at the moment. But maybe she can do what Ronda did and slim down and get leaner.

That's a big ole girl.

Quote :

At the age of just 13, Harrison was forced to endure a horrific incident of long-term sexual abuse involving her coach, who plead guilty to the crime and was locked up back in 2007. She recently went public with her story last year and has since campaigned to help other victims out their predators in the sports world.

Wow I had no idea she was a victim of sexual abuse. Crazy story.