Isao Okano

Isao Okano

Personal information
Born	(1944-01-20) 20 January 1944 Ryūgasaki, Ibaraki, Japan
Height	1.71 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	80 kg (180 lb)
Sport
Sport	Judo
Medal record Representing  Japan Olympic Games 1964 Tokyo -80 kg World Championships 1965 Rio de Janeiro -80 kg

Isao Okano (岡野 功, Okano Isao, born 20 January 1944) is a retired judoka who competed in the middleweight (−80 kg) division.^[1]

Biography

Okano entered the 1964 Summer Olympics while studying at Chuo University's law school, and won the gold medal in the middleweight division. He won another gold medal at the World Judo Championships in 1965, becoming the champion of his division at only 21 years of age. He also won the open-weight class division of the All-Japan Judo Championships in 1967 and 1969, and placed second in 1968. At 80 kg, he and Shinobu Sekine remain the lightest ever competitors to win these championships.^[1] Okano suddenly retired from competitive judo at only 25 years of age, and founded the Sekijuku (currently the Ryutsu Keizai University's judo team) in 1970, where he instructed future Olympic gold medalist Kazuhiro Ninomiya. He also served as a coach for the Japanese team during the 1976 Summer Olympics. He later worked as a judo instructor at Keio University from 1989 to 1998, and the University of Tokyo from 1989 to 2000. He is a retired professor and Head of the Judo Department at Ryutsu Keizai University. He has held the judo rank of 6th dan for more than 40 years. Isao Okano is the author of one of the most renown judo books ever, Vital Judo,^[2] which was published in 1976. Okano is famously known for his seoinage, kouchigari, and newaza.

See also

• List of judoka
• List of Olympic medalists in judo
• seoinage

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Isao Okano.

• Competition videos of Isao Okano at Judovision