Half-Middleweight (≤78 kilograms), Men

This was the class most affected by the boycott as Japan’s Shozo Fujii, four-time World Champion, was not present. In addition the 1980 European Champion, Neil Adams, dropped back to the lightweight class in Moskva. In their absence, the class came down, as did many in 1980 judo, to Soviet, Cuban, and East German fighters. The final matched Shota Khabareli (USSR and Georgia) against Cuba’s Juan Ferrer. Ferrer opened with koka at 23 seconds, but Khabarelli equaled the match at two minutes, and made the winning move at four minutes, scoring a yuko from ouchi-gari. The bronze medalists, Bernard Tchoullouyan of France and Harald Heinke of East Germany, had also won medals in this class at the 1979 Worlds.