Colton Brown retires leaving it all on the tatami of the revered Nippon Budokan at the Tokyo 2020ne Olympic Games in Japan

For Immediate Release:
July 28, 2021

TOKYO, Japan – Colton Brown (Piscataway, N.J./Bridgewater, N.J./New York Athletic Club/San Jose State University) left it all on the mat of the revered Nippon Budokan today at the Tokyo 2020ne Olympic Games. Brown scored a win by ippon in his opening bout of the men’s under 90kg division against Raphael Schwendinger of Liechtenstein. He then faced Turkey's Mihael Zgank and lost by waza-ari. Zgank went on to compete in the bronze medal match, losing to finish fourth place overall.

Brown, a two time Olympian (2016 and 2020) announced his retirement from competitive judo in the Press Mixed Zone at the end of the day and was reflective of his incredible judo career to which Japan has been a major sport and life influencer.

“My judo career kind of started here (in Tokyo),” said Brown. “After I graduated high school, I came here to Nihon University to live for four months and I trained for six hours a day. It was the toughest experience of my life. So to have my judo career start here and possibly end here today it’s a good feeling. My goal today was to show the best version of myself. Win, lose or whatever the case may be; I wanted this to be the best version of Colton Brown that anybody has ever seen and I wanted to prove to myself that if I turn it on I can be the best version of myself and I’m pretty satisfied that I did that today. Finishing here (at the Nippon Budokan) makes it all the more special. Everybody always asks, ‘if this were your last match, how would you fight?’ I’m not upset with how I fought in that last match. For me to make it here and and on top of that leave everything I had in the tank on this mat; I think this is the best I’ve ever fought today. It’s a really special feeling, shows the growth and it shows that if you train hard enough and put your mind to something you can vastly improve. I gave it everything I had.”

Nefeli Papadakis (Gurnee, Ill./Wolf Judo Club/College of Lake County/DeVry University) will compete tomorrow, Thursday, July 29th in the women’s under 78kg division on Thursday, July 29th. Papadakis will compete in the fourth match on Mat #2 against South Korea’s Hynjuii Yoon. For USA viewers please check the latest schedule on NBCOlympics.com for streaming and viewing options. Nina Cutro-Kelly (Albany, N.Y./Selma, Texas/Universal Judo/ Universite de Rennes - Rennes, France will close out the Tokyo 2020ne Olympics Games in the women’s over 78kg division on Friday, July 30, 2021. Coaches the team is Jhonny Prado (Coral Springs, Fla./ Ki-itsu-sai National Training Site) and Justin Flores (Carlsbad, Calif./Studio 540).

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic judo tournament is taking place July 24-31, 2021 in the historic Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan, the host venue of the first ever Olympic Judo competition in 1964. ()

For more information, please contact Cecil Bleiker, Team USA Press Officer - Judo at +1-6719-330-2062.