The strong and silent type. Matvey KANIKOVSKIY rarely gives away any emotions or thoughts on the tatami, he is there to do a job and a good one at that. There is only ever one goal and that is gold.
Today, he continued in this streak and defeated former double World Champion, Nikoloz SHERAZADISHVILI (ESP) in the quarter final before moving forward, only to meet team mate, 2023 World Champion, Arman ADAMIAN.
It was a very tough contest, they are in training with one another over three quarters of the year, so know exactly each others tactics, techniques and even tells. The pair went in to golden score with only a shido to Adamian’s name. Then it was a huge soto makikomi from Kanikovskiy only 12 seconds in.
Everyone anticipated the final against Japan’s ARAI Dota, the ‘Samurai’ who admittedly had a somewhat difficult day, but he had prepared specially for this contest against Europe’s hope for a medal. The reason being, the pair have fought on two occasions prior to the World Championships in Budapest, and twice Arai did not have an answer, losing in the first minute on home soil during the Tokyo Grand Slam 2023 and 2024.
It was a better attempt today from the Japanese athlete, clearly his homework had been paying off, reaching almost three minutes of contest time, Arai had picked up shidos but no score against him, then an incredibly controlled uchi mata came from Kanikovskiy. He transitioned immediately in to ne waza, and it looked like he was trying to find a strangle but instead used the tremendous discomfort to hold Arai with yoko shiho gatame to call himself the World Champion.
There was not a boring fight!! [he laughs] I think we were both thinking about doing something new to surprise the other but I guess I surprised Dota.
Now I am the world champion. Even from when I first started, I knew that this is what I wanted when I started when I was five years old, and I am the first in my family. I used to watch all the judo, everything I could and I had so many judoka that I liked, and now I am on the list.
Judoka
Author: Thea Cowen