Sulaiman Hammad’s Tokyo 2020 campaign is over after he lost to Canadian Arthur Margelidon in his elimination round of 32 of the men’s judo 73 kg competition at Nippon Budokan arena in the Japanese capital.
The Saudi’s loss in the knockout format means he joins other Kingdom athletes, the weightlifter Siraj Al-Saleem and the shooter Saeed Al-Mutairi, in exiting the Olympics early, while rower Husein Alireza, who began his men’s single sculls competition on the opening day of the tournament, will be involved in tomorrow’s semifinal C/D, which allows him to improve his overall Olympic ranking.
The 27-year-old Hammad had two penalties called against him before Margelidon was awarded a waza-ari, the second highest score possible in judo, to win the contest and progress to round 16.
Hammad was returning for a second successive Olympics, having been part of the Saudi delegation for Rio 2016.
His first medal in the Kingdom’s colors came in 2011 when he won bronze at the Asian Judo Championship in the UAE. The year 2017 was particularly successful one for Hammad as he won bronze at the 2nd World Police Games in Abu Dhabi, finished 5th at the Asian Open in Taipei, and 7th at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku.
Earlier this year he reached the last 16 at the 2021 World Judo Championship in Budapest.
