Travis Stevens Advances to Fourth Round at the World Championships

(Tokyo, Japan) – In one of the largest divisions at the Senior World Championships, Beijing Olympian Travis Stevens (Wakefield, Mass. / NYAC / USA Judo National Team FORCE) advanced to the fourth round of the 80-player 81kg division on Friday, placing one match away from having the opportunity to fight for a medal.

 

“In Travis’ case, three wins in every other tournament would get you into the quarters and a top seven finish, but here with 80 athletes in his division, Travis was still one win away from fighting for the money,” said Coach Jimmy Pedro (Methuen, Mass.)  “On the men’s side most of the divisions are just stacked – 73s, 81s and 90s.  When you’ve gotta go seven rounds, it’s a long, hard road.  Recovery is a major factor and as the tournament advances, the matches start coming even faster!”

Stevens, a four-time World Cup medalist, opened with a difficult match against 2009 European medalist Levan Tsiklauri (GEO).  With the score tied at a penalty each, Stevens threw Tsiklauri for ippon (instant win) in the fourth minute of the match with a koshi garuma (hip wheel technique).

“I started off well with the Georgian and I started to feel better as the day progressed,” Stevens said. 

In the second round, Stevens was leading his match against three-time World Cup medalist Micha Egger (SUI) when Egger grabbed Stevens’ pants and was disqualified from the match.

Stevens then met Rijigawa Si (CHN) in the third round and led the match by three penalties before throwing Si for a waza-ari (half-point) score at the buzzer for the win.

After three matches, Stevens had his hardest fight of the day ahead when he would fight 2007 World medalist Euan Burton (GBR) – a player many would have feared looking ahead in the tournament.

“You just take it one match at a time.  You can’t look too far into the draw and see who you’re going to have because it’s judo,” Stevens said.  “A lot of the top seeds lost early and aren’t fighting for medals so you can only really look a match or two ahead anyway.”

 

With one more win needed to get into the quarters, Stevens and Burton battled for five minutes with Burton taking the win by two penalties to one.

 

“Looking back on it I don’t really think there’s much I could’ve done differently.  I made a lot of mistakes, but they’re mistakes that are going to take months of work to fix.  The game plan we put together for that match I followed it to the ‘t’ except for the two to three minute mark when I started playing his game and I got behind,” Stevens said.  “Then I got back on my game plan for about the last minute and a half.  That one minute where I was playing his judo is where I lost it and it cost me getting into the quarters.”

“I thought it was a winnable match.  Travis got off to a strong start.  Overall, I think he hesitated a little too much mid-way through the match and lost focus for about two minutes .  Even then he lost by the slimmest of margins – a shido which I thought should have gone both ways and not just given to him,”

 

Coach Pedro said.  “I thought he was very active in the match.  Perhaps the other guy could have gotten a shido too and that would have tied it up, but we’re at the World Championships and he had a solid day.  We had hoped he would make it into the medal rounds.  It just didn’t happen today.” 

 

Stevens plans to hit the competition circuit again this fall when he competes at the Rome World Cup and Rotterdam Grand Prix.

 

“I’m going to use Rome as a tune-up to work on some different gripping strategies.  I’ve got some work to do over the next six months on gripping and hopefully by Paris [Grand Slam] I’ll have what I want to work on down,” Stevens said of his future plans.

 

In divisions that included as many as 59 players each, Team USA had three players advance out of the opening rounds.

Jake Larsen (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Team FORCE / USA Judo National Training Site at the Olympic Training Center) met Kuvvat Nuryyev (TKM) in the first round of the 90kg division.  Larsen threw Nuryyev for a yuko score before taking him to the ground where Larsen pinned Nurryev and choked him to end the match.

In the second round, Larsen was thrown by Hector Campos (ARG) for ippon.

Larsen’s OTC teammate Katie Sell (Colorado Springs, Colo.) had a first round bye at 70kg and threw Karen Ann Solomon (PHI) for ippon in her opening match. 

With one more win needed to advance to the quarter-finals, Sell fought two-time Olympic medalist and 2005 World Champion Edith Bosch (NED), but lost when she was thrown for ippon.

A first-time Senior World Team member at the age of 18, 70kg player Laquinta Allen (Lauderdale Lakes, Fla. / Onikusu) won her first match on the World stage when she began her match aggressively, attacking Fouzia Mumtaz (PAK) from the start and throwing her for ippon in the first minute.

In the second round, Allen fought 2005 World medalist Rasa Sraka (SLO), but lost when Sraka threw her for a waza-ari and pinned her for the win.

“I think overall as a team we did pretty well,” Coach Pedro said.  “Katie had a win.  Jake had a win.  Laquinta had a win.  Travis had three wins.  This is the World Championships.  There’s no doubt it’s hard to medal at the Worlds.  Travis was our big hope for the day and he ended up being just  one match away from the money and being able to maybe fight for a medal.  Burton went on to win the bronze and now it’s time to focus on the athletes that we have competing tomorrow.” 

Two first-time Senior World Team members also competed on Friday, but did not advance out of the opening rounds.

A three-time Pan American medalist, Garry St. Leger (Brooklyn, N.Y. / NYAC / Legrosports Starrett) qualified for his first Senior World Team earlier this year, but drew four-time World Cup medalist Daiki Nishiyama (JPN) in the first round of the 90kg division.  Both players received early stalling penalties, but Nishiyama took control in the second minute, throwing St. Leger for ippon.

After advancing to his first Senior National final in May, Jose Bencosme (San Jose, Calif. / USA Judo National Training Site at San Jose State University) was penalized for stalling during the second minute of his 81kg match against Sirazhudin Magomedov (RUS) and then thrown for a yuko score.  Penalized again, Bencosme continued attacking, but was thrown for waza-ari and ippon scores. 

Competition continues on Saturday with the men’s 73kg and women’s 57kg and 63kg divisions.

Men’s 73kg
Nick Delpopolo (Wakefield, Mass. / NYAC / USA Judo National Team FORCE), three-time World Cup medalist
Michael Eldred (Fruitland, Idaho / Western Idaho Judo Institute), five-time World Cup medalist

Women’s 57kg
Marti Malloy (San Jose, Calif. / USA Judo National Training Site at San Jose State University), four-time World Cup medalist
Hana Carmichael (Wakefield, Mass. / NYAC / USA Judo National Team FORCE), 2010 El Salvador World Cup medalist