Hitoshi Saito, Double Olympic Judo Champion, Passed Away
The 54-year Japanese was fighting against a cancer, but died on Tuesday, January 20th.
The Japanese and world judo lost on Tuesday, 20th, one of its biggest names. The Japanese Hitoshi Saito, double Olympic champion, died at 54 in the city of Osaka, Japan, after fighting against a cancer in the gallbladder since 2013.
Saito won two Olympic gold medals consecutively. First in Los Angeles in 1984 and then in Seoul in 1988, in the + 95kg category. When he retired from the athletic career, he joined the coaching staff of the Japanese national team as the coach of the senior team who took part in the Olympics Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
Since November 2012, the judoka has been the head of the Improvement Committee if the Japan Judo Federation (All Japan Judo Federation - AJJF). Saito's death news perplexed the president of the Japanese Olympic Committee, Tsunekazu Takeda, who lamented the loss.
"It was all very sudden, so I do not know what to say. As an athlete and coach he really gave his best. We had expectations that he got better and we feel sorry for what happened. He was a serious and conscientious man," Takeda said.
Nine-time national champion and one of the most outstanding Japanese judo names , Yasuhiro Yamashita also expressed his surprise and regreted the death of his old adversary: "He was my rival throughout my career. It is very sad to know that.."
The tumor in the gallbladder region was diagnosed in 2013 and since then, Saito has struggled to recover from the disease. His state of health had been deteriorating, especially in the last year and the Japanese did not resist and died on Tuesday, January 20th .
