Japan reigned supreme in Asian Games judo,but they claimed they were robbed of a gold medal by bad refereeing and a black eye inflicted on one of their world champions. Japan grabbed seven out of 16 gold medals on offer with South Korea winning six and China two. Uzbekistan lifted their first ever Asian Games judo title. "What we care about is not the number of medals," said Japan's judo team leader Kazuo Yoshimura. "We are aiming for the London Olympics and we must realise what we should correct before the much tougher competition in 2012." Then he angrily hit at officiating on the Asian Games judo mat which he said was the "most terrible" he had ever seen in international competition. In the women's 48kg final,which brought the curtain down on the four-day competition,Japan's former world champion Tomoko Fukumi lost to Wu Shugen of China by a 2-1 decision. Despite apparently remaining the aggressor,the referee did not give her any points. "There may be some home-or-away issue here but the decision was too terrible to be accepted in this world of competition," Yoshimura said,pointing out Wu had not made any solid attacks while Fukumi floored her for a pinning attempt three times. All-Japan Judo Federation president Haruki Uemura agreed: "Fukumi was the winner even if hometown favourtism was counted against her." "I thought I had won," said the 25-year-old Fukumi,Japan's top 48kg fighter after the retirement of Ryoko Tani,who has won two Olympic and seven world championship golds. "Even if I had won the match this way,I would have never been satisfied," she said,regretting she could not dump Wu by "ippon," the perfect execution of a technique which stops the match just like a knockout in boxing. The Japanese team were also fuming over the women's 63kg semi-final in which world champion Yoshie Ueno was allegedly punched several times by North Korea's Kim Su-Gyong. Ueno managed to win the match by decision and went on to claim the gold despite sporting a swollen left eye. Neither the referee nor the jury punished Kim. The Japanese federation was preparing to send videos of the semi-final to the International Judo Federation (IJF) for review. "There were referees who have experienced the Olympics and others who have just obtained licenses from the Judo Union of Asia," said IJF jury committee member Takao Kawaguchi,a Japanese. "There is the possibility that some of them were swayed by the atmosphere of the venue." Japanese men's coach Shinichi Shinohara was angry for different reasons. He brought along four male judokas,who triumphed at the world championships in Tokyo two months ago,but only one of them claimed gold. Two other Japanese men won titles for a total of three. "We had aimed for four gold medals. I was too optimistic," he said. Despite the controversy,Japan hit the target of regaining the Asian Games number one spot they lost for the first time in 16 years at the last edition in Doha. China topped the table with five against four for Japan and South Korea in 2006.
