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Injury is a way of life for Japan's judo queen
Japanese judo queen Ryoko Tani is determined to fight through the pain barrier as she sets out to defend her Sydney medal at Athens.
Japanese judo queen Ryoko Tani is determined to fight through the pain barrier as she sets out to defend her Sydney Olympics gold medal in Athens.
The diminutive six-time world champion and national icon sent a shudder of fear through Japan when she injured her right ankle in a freak training accident just a month before this year's games.
But even though the 146 centimetre bantamweight says she has not fully recovered from the injury, she has set her sights on writing another glorious chapter in her fourth Olympics.
The 28-year-old has reached the gold medal bout for her weight class in every Olympics since 1992, losing the first two before making it third time lucky in Sydney four years ago.
The pin-up girl of Japanese judo, formerly Ryoko Tamura, got married last December to professional baseball star Yoshitomo Tani, a 31-year-old outfielder with the Orix Blue Waves, who will also play for Japan in Athens.
"Whether or not I recover, I am determined to stand on the tatami (mat) and fight. I want to shine in Athens," Tani said last week when she came out of seclusion following the injury.
"I think I have recovered about 70 per cent. It could have been easier if I gave up Athens because of the injury. But I have rather reconfirmed my goal of grabbing the gold medal no matter how," she said.
"I am going to Athens together with my husband and both of us will aim for the best result," said Tani, who fell backwards with her left big toe stuck between straw mats during a workout in mid-July, damaging muscles and tendons on the fibula on her pivot right foot.
The injury left her right ankle swollen with internal bleeding for some 10 days.
But Japanese women's judo coach Kazuro Yoshimura noted that Tani has shrugged off injury to reign supreme in the under-48kg lightest judo division. "She has overcome accidents to bask in glory in the past and I believe she will do so again this time," the coach said.
Tani, a specialist of classic "seionage" shoulder throws, gold in 2000 despite injury to her left little finger.
When she triumphed at the 2001 world championships in Munich, she was nursing a severed ligament in her right knee.
Tani also concealed a fresh right knee injury to lift her sixth world title last year on home mats in Osaka by beating two-time European champion Frederique Jossinet of France in the final.
No judokas before her, male or female, had won more than four straight world titles. Belgian Ingrid Berghmans collected six women's open and light-heavyweight titles in the 1980s, but not consecutively.
Tani has come a long way since her debut at the 1991 worlds, when she won bronze as a 15 year-old. But she almost quit in 1996 when she lost for the second time in the Olympic final.
"I cannot imagine myself preparing another four years for next Olympics with a hell of competition and camp training," she said at that time following her upset loss to North Korea's Kye Sun-Hui.
But eight years later the competitive fires are burning as strongly as ever, prompting the Japanese to declare: "As there was a gold medal for Ryoko Tamura, there will be a gold medal for Ryoko Tani."
