Paralympic Judo Athlete Choi Kwang-geun Wins Bronze... Medals in Three Consecutive Games

[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Kim] Choi Kwang-geun (34, Sejong City Disabled Sports Association, Sports Classification B2) won a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

On the afternoon of the 29th, Choi Kwang-geun defeated Cuba's Yordani Fernandez Sastre (B3) in the men's judo +100kg bronze medal match held at the Nippon Budokan in Japan. With this, South Korea's judo team secured bronze medals for both representatives who participated in the Tokyo Paralympics: Lee Jung-min in the men's 81kg category and Choi Kwang-geun.

Choi Kwang-geun won by ippon with a morote seoi nage technique against Fernandez.

According to the tournament regulations, Choi Kwang-geun (ranked 4th in the world), who earned a bye given to the top 4 world-ranked players, started his schedule from the quarterfinals instead of the round of 16. He defeated Ilham Zakiyev (B1) of Azerbaijan in the quarterfinals but lost to Mohammadreza Kheirollahzadeh (B2) of Iran in the semifinals, missing the chance to advance to the final.

Having achieved consecutive gold medals in the -100kg category at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Games, he moved up a weight class to challenge the +100kg category in Tokyo. With this, he succeeded in winning medals in three consecutive Paralympic Games.

Choi Kwang-geun began judo in the 5th grade of elementary school. During training in his second year of high school, an unfortunate accident damaged the cornea of his left eye. However, he did not quit judo and transitioned to disabled judo, standing on the podium three times at the Paralympic stage.

Paralympic judo is only open to visually impaired athletes, and competitions are held by integrating sports classifications. The classifications are divided into three categories: B1 (completely unable to perceive light and unable to recognize the shape of a hand in any direction or distance even if light is perceived), B2 (able to recognize the shape of a hand with visual acuity up to 2/60 and visual field less than 5 degrees), and B3 (visual acuity from 2/60 up to 6/60 and visual field between 5 degrees and 20 degrees).