January 21, 2012 - It was a very good day for Team USA at the Pajulahti Games in Finland, a multi-sport competition for athletes with disabilities. A squad of three U.S. athletes captured four gold medals.
Dartanyon Crockett, 81 kg, and Myles Porter, -100 kg, and Ron Hawthorne, 60 kg, took gold in their divisions at the Games. Porter took another gold in the open weight division. All these athletes train in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center.
The day started off rough for Crockett, who lost to Matthias Krieger (GER) by Wazari when his attack was countered. But then Crockett clawed his back first facing Sharif Khalilov (UZB) and pinned him with tateshiho gatame for Ippon. This earned him first place in his pool after Khalilov then threw Krieger for Ippon. In the semi-final he faced Sebastian Junk (GER) and threw him for two wazaris with sumi gaeshi. His finals opponent was Oleg Zykov (RUS). He threw Zykov with tai otoshi for ippon. What started slowly ended with a bang and a gold medal for Dartanyon.
Ron Hawthorne had a tough match right off the bat. He drew Artem Merkulov (RUS), who recently won a silver medal at the 2012 European Championships. They battled back and forth with neither player able to throw the opponent until the 3 min mark when Hawthorne got under Merkulov with kata garuma for wazari. This was the only score of the match and Hawthorne won a hard fought battle. His next opponent was Eetu Tiensuu (FIN). Hawthorne controlled the match from the start and on the second exchange he threw Tiensuu for ippon with seoi nage to earn his gold medal.
A very dominating performance was turned in today by Myles Porter. In his first match he threw Konstantin Kapitonov (RUS) 41 seconds into the match with tomoe nage for wazari and went straight into juji gatame armbar for ippon. He then pinned Aleksandr Parasyuk with tateshiho gatame and earned his gold medal in the -100Kg. division.
Porter then competed in the open division and threw his first opponent from Finland in 5 seconds with seoinage for ippon. He then threw Matthias Krieger (GER) with tani otoshi for ippon 41 seconds into the match. To finish off the open division and take a second gold medal, Porter arm-barred Sabastian Junk (GER) with juji gatame.
The three U.S. athletes will be attending a camp at the Pujalahti Sports Center before heading home on Wednesday.
- Reported by Brad Daniels
"Congratulations to our athletes, coaches and our High Performance staff on yet
another successful international competition. USA Judo is proud to be one of the
few National Governing Body that coordinatesn Promote and administer a
Paralympic sport equally with its Olympic counter part. It is a great source of
pride to see both Paralympic as well as Olympic Judo winning."
-- Jose Humberto Rodriguez, CEO USA Judo
Team Roster
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Ron Hawthorne |
Colorado Springs, CO |
Olympic Training Center |
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Dartanyan Crockett |
Colorado Springs, CO |
Olympic Training Center |
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Myles Porter |
Colorado Springs, CO |
Olympic Training Center |
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| Coach - Brad Daniels |
