1980 Moscow, -95kg: Robert van de Walle (BEL)

After the spectacular win by Angelo Parisi in the +95kg division, it was yet another Frenchman, Jean-Luc Rouge, who was the top favorite in the -95kg. He was the reigning European Champion at +95kg and the 1979 World silver medalist in the +95kg (having lost to the great Yasuhiro Yamashita in the final). But in Moscow, he would be fighting one weight division lower at -95kg.

Other top contenders were Tengiz Khubuluri of the Soviet Union, who was the 1979 World Champion at -95kg, and Robert van de Walle of Belgium, the 1979 World Silver medalist at that weight class. On paper, van de Walle was behind both Rouge and Khubuluri in terms of top prospects for gold. But on that day, he shined.

Van de Walle defeated Istvan Szepesi of Hungary by koka and Robert Chizooma of Zambia by ippon to face Rouge in the quarterfinal. These two had never fought before but it was a clash of styles with Rouge favoring classical techniques while van de Walle preferred a more grappling style of judo. The match was evenly fought but with just eight seconds left in the match, the cagey Belgian caught his tall French opponent with a morote-gari for yuko. Rouge left the mat in tears, knowing full well that this was the end of his career.

Having defeated one of the top favorites, van de Walle was on a roll and crushed Henk Numan of the Netherlands for ippon to earn his place in the final. His opponent there was his rival Khubuluri, who had beaten him in the finals of the 1979 European Championships and the 1979 World Championships. If van de Walle had had any doubts, he didn’t show it. The match went for the full five minutes but it was the Belgian who was the aggressor, constantly picking at the Soviet champion’s legs.

The first score came when Khubuluri tried to do a hooking hip throw, which was what he had used to throw van de Walle in the 1979 World’s. The Belgian had worked on a counter for it for a year and just like clockwork, he was able to respond to the inevitable hip throw with a te-guruma pick-up followed by a massive kosoto that completely levelled the Soviet player. Ippon was given by the referee but the score was subsequently downgraded to waza-ari. It didn’t matter though. Van de Walle was on fire and got another score with that exact same move. When Khubuluri came in for another hooking hip throw, van de Walle grabbed his leg, te-guruma style, and countered him with kosoto again. Khubuluri managed to twist out of the throw, conceding only a koka this time. He could not get back the scores and ran out of time. Van de Walle had become Olympic champion.