Paris, France, July 27, 2024: Kazakhstan judoka Yeldos Smetov has finally won the gold medal he craved at the Olympic Games – and become the first Olympic judo champion in his country’s history.
After taking a silver at Rio 2016 and bronze at Tokyo 2020 in the men’s -60kg category – the lightest of the men’s weight divisions – the 31-year-old Smetov climbed to the top of the podium at the Champ-de-Mars Arena in Paris on Saturday.
Smetov thanked all Kazakh people for their support and said this is “a historic moment” for the country, the Astana Times reported.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev congratulated Smetov.
“Thanks to his skill and strength of spirit, the flag of Kazakhstan is flying high. Yeldos became the best in the world in the struggle with the strongest rivals, having won the main competition held every four years. The whole country admires you,” wrote Tokayev on his X account.
His tatami marathon began at 10.12am and finished with the final at 5.18pm – five tough steps to the top of the podium.
In the final against home favourite Luka Mkheidze, Smetov received two “shido” penalties for non-combativity before winning the contest with a waza-ari (ko-soto-gake, foot technique) for 1-0.
Coming into the Paris Games, Smetov said he would have retired after Rio 2016 if he had won gold instead of silver and vowed to continue competing even until he was 40 in order to capture that elusive gold medal.
Now he can feel satisfied - nine years ahead of schedule.
The bronze medals were won by Ryuju Nagayama of Japan and Spain’s Francisco Garrigos.
In the women's -48kg event, three-time world champion Natsumi Tsunoda of Japan beat Mongolia's Baasankhuu Bavuudorj by a waza-ari during the regular time, earning Japan their first gold at the Paris Olympics. Shirine Boukli of France shared the bronze with Tara Babulfath of Sweden.