UAE’s Olympic medal hopes vanish after Ivan Remarenco suffers first round judo defeat

Canada's Shady Elnahas (white) and UAE's Ivan Remarenco compete in the judo men's 100kg elimination round.

The UAE’s medal hopes at the Tokyo Olympics all but ended after judoka Ivan Remarenco suffered a first-round defeat to Canadian Shady Elnahas at the Nippon Budokan on Thursday.

Remarenco, 32, failed to land a blow as he went down by ippon in just over two minutes to the Egypt-born Elnahas, 23, in the 100-kilogram weight.

It marks a double disappointment for the UAE's two judokas following Victor Scvortov's first-round exit on Monday. The martial art is one of only two disciplines the country has medalled in at a Games following Sergio Toma's bronze at Rio in 2016.

While admitting that Shady was "no pushover", UAE Wrestling and Judo Federation general secretary Nasser Al Tamimi said focus now turns to the Paris Games in three years time.

“We tried and failed this time. We’ll now have to go back to the drawing boards and start preparing for Paris 2024,” Al Tamimi told The National.

“We certainly can take a lot of positives from our programme. We won bronze at Rio and then Ivan and Victor qualified for the Olympics in Tokyo. It’s just that we couldn’t reach the medal rounds this time.”

Remarenco was appearing in an Olympics for the third time. He represented Moldova at London 2012 before competing under the UAE flag at Rio and Tokyo.

Scvortov has represented the UAE at the Rio and Tokyo Olympics and won his adopted country an Asian Games bronze at Jakarta 2018.

“Our investment on these three judokas haven’t been in vain,” Al Tamimi, who is also a member of the International Judo Federation, said.

“They have brought us a lot success both in the world circuit and the continental championships. The plan has always been to continue with our strategy of recruiting a few foreigners who can lay a benchmark for our local judokas.

“We have a good programme in place for the young Emirati judokas. We are hopeful we’ll eventually have Emirati judokas at the Olympics, perhaps 2024 or 2028.”

The last of the UAE's five-member squad is in action on Saturday when Hassan Al Noobi lines up in the heats of the 100 metres.