Of course, it was only a round of 16 of the Paris Grand Slam. However, the Accor Arena in Bercy vibrated, trembled, exulted like never before during Clarisse Agbégnénou’s fight against the Japanese Megumi Horikawa. That is to say a real final before its time between the Frenchwoman, reigning Olympic champion in the under 63kg category, and the Japanese, world champion in 2022 when the French judokate was on her maternity break. But this Saturday, the latter was determined to set the record straight…
Like her fight against another Japanese, Miku Takaichi, in the final of the 2019 Worlds which lasted more than 11 minutes before the Frenchwoman was able to celebrate what was then the 4th world of her career – she has six now -, Clarisse Agbégnénou had to dig deep within herself to defeat Megumi Horikawa after more than twelve (!) minutes of a very intense duel. A clash that she dominated, pushing the Japanese to be penalized with two penalties in the four minutes of regulation time.
But during the Golden Score, despite the pressure from the Parisian public, the third penalty did not fall and on two occasions, Horikawa was not far from surprising his opponent and carrying out a real hold-up. After 11 minutes, with an incredible effort, Agbégnénou lifted the Japanese woman from the ground but she, like a cat, managed to land on her stomach, thus avoiding the fatal ippon. But physically exhausted, Horikawa was no longer able to attack and by enduring, the third shido (penalty) logically ended up falling. To the great delight of an audience in a trance after witnessing such a fight.