Japan’s former World Champion Soichi Hashimoto has announced his retirement from competitive judo.
A very stylish fighter, Hashimoto was mainly known for his unique one-handed sode-tsurikomi-goshi but he was also able to do seoi-nage and tai-otoshi, both to the right and to the left. In that sense, he was a very versatile fighter although he didn’t do much groundwork.
For a brief period, from 2014 to 2016, Japan was spoiled for choice when it came to the -73kg division as it had up to four World Champions who were actively competing at the time: Hashimoto, together with Hiroyuki Akimoto, Riki Nakaya and Shohei Ono.
Although the field eventually thinned out a bit, from 2018 to 2020, Japan still had three former World Champions in the -73kg divison: Hashimoto, Ono and Masashi Ebinuma (who had moved up from the -66kg division).
Hashimoto’s main domestic rival was Ono but they never fought each other in an IJF event. His main international rival was Azerbaijan’s Hidayat Heydarov, whom Hashimoto fought eight times from 2017 to 2023. Hashimoto won seven consecutive matches against Heydarov. But in their last encounter, in the final of the 2023 Tokyo Grand Slam, it was Heydarov who emerged triumphant. 
In his farewell message posted on Instagram, Hashimoto took a dig at Heydarov by posting a picture of him throwing Heydarov with a one-handed sode-tsurikomi-goshi, something he did many times during their encounters over the years.
Hashimoto never achieved the same kind of acclaim that Ono or Heydarov (both of whom are Olympic Champions) received but he did rack up some impressive titles in his career. Besides being World Champion, he was also Asian Champion, and he had won gold medals in the IJF World Tour a whopping 12 times. That’s an impressive achievement by any measure.
“Throughout my long journey in judo, there were many times I stumbled and many times I had to rise again,” Hashimoto wrote on his Instagram post. “Even so, I continued to stand on the tatami and I was able to realise many of my dreams.”
Hashimoto did not indicate exactly what he would do next but he said, “Moving forward, I hope to pass on the experiences I’ve gained to the next generation.”
