YAMAMOTO WINS WOMEN’S OPEN CROWN, TO RETURN TO ALL-JAPAN MEET

MISHIMA, Shizuoka (October 15-16) – Former world champion Miyuu Yamamoto won the 48kg crown at the Japan Women's Open Championships in her first national-level competition since the Japan Queens Cup event in February 2004.

Although official qualification standards for the national championships in December have not yet been announced, it is expected that by winning the women's open title the 37-year-old Yamamoto will appear in her first All-Japan meet in eight years.

Yamamoto, who won world titles in 1991, 1994 and, 1995, was named the outstanding wrestler of the Open after winning her two of her three bouts by fall.

Individual winners in the junior-senior division were:

Women's freestyle

Senior-Junior division

48kg – Miyuu Yamamoto, Hakuju club

51kg – Yu Miyahara, Abe Gakuin high school

55kg – Chiaki Arai, Waseda University

59kg – Eriko Nakata, Waseda club

63kg – Fusano Mochizuki, Abe Gakuin

67kg – Kayoko Kudo, Japan Self-Defense Forces

72kg – no entry

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