Open Class, Men

Yasuhiro Yamashita was the strongest favorite of the 1984 judo tournament. He would have been even if the Soviet and East German fighters were in Los Angeles. Yamashita had lost the final of the 1977 Japanese Student Championships, but had not lost since, with 194 consecutive match wins or draws in national and international competition coming into the 1984 Olympics. He was a four-time World Champion, and almost always won his matches by ippon. In his pool, he won his first match by ippon in 28 seconds. In his second match against West Germany’s Arthur Schnabel, Yamashita won with a shime-waza submission hold for ippon at 2:50. But as he left the mat, Yamashita was clearly limping. For his pool final against France’s Laurent del Colombo, Yamashita was obviously injured, favoring his right leg. Del Colombo attacked the injured leg, and scored a koka, the first score given up by Yamashita for years. But Yamashita countered with ouchi-gari for yuko and went straight to a kuzure-kami-shiho-gatame hold-down for ippon to advance to the final. In the final he met Egyptian Mohamed Ali Rashwan, who had also won all his pool matches by ippon. As he came out for the final, Yamashita was limping worse than ever, having torn muscles in his right calf. Rashwan was quickly overcome, despite the injury, Yamashita using yoko-shiho-gatame for ippon in only 1:05. At the medal ceremony, Rashwan had to help Yamashita up onto the podium. In September 1985, Rashwan was awarded the International Fair Play Award, based on his supposed refusal to attack Yamashita’s injured leg in the final. Films of the match, however, reveal that not only did Rashwan attack Yamashita’s injured leg, it was his first move in the final.