Kenji Inoue

Kenji Inoue ( born November 5, 1976 in Kyoto ) is a former Japanese wrestler. He won a bronze medal in freestyle wrestling featherweight at the 2004 Olympic Games.

Career

Kenji Inoue began at the age of 13 years in 1989 with the rings. He concentrated entirely on the free style. After graduating, he joined the Japanese Self Defense Forces and was a member of the Self Defense Forces Club Saitama, where he was trained by Hajime Wakui.

The international Ringer career by Kenji Inoue began as a student, he went to Tehran at the World Championships of the universities in 1996 Bantamweight at the start and finished in free style the 6th Place. His next international launch took place at the World Cup of universities. In 1998 he won in Ankara bantamweight behind Alireza Dabir of Iran and Arif Kama from Turkey the bronze medal.

In 1999 he was employed by the Japanese Wrestling Federation in the Asia Cup in Tashkent. He was there but win a medal and landed in the bantamweight on the 5th Place.

After the international Ringer career by Kenji Inoue stopped until the year 2004. He was active in those years in many important national tournaments or championships in Japan. So he took in 2002 at the " Japan Invitational " in Tokyo Featherweight the 2nd place in the featherweight behind Ryosuke Ota, 2003 at the " Emeperor Cup" behind Hironori Sekikawa Featherweight the 2nd place, while the " Shizuoka National Sports Festival " at featherweight won. In 2004 he also won the " Meiji Ngugyo Cup" at featherweight before Hiroki Sekikawa.

In 2003 he was behind Hidenori Yamamoto and in 2004 behind Takafumi Kojima each Japanese Vice- featherweight champion.

In 2004, he was then to be seen again on the international wrestling mat. He won this year's Olympic Qualif. tournament in Sofia featherweight before Ibrahim Abdul Rahman from Qatar, Gergö Wöller from Hungary and Purvbaatat Oyunbulag from Mongolia and had qualified for the Olympic Games in Athens. Before the Olympics, he started in 2004 still at the Grand Prix of Germany in Leipzig and finished there in spring weight behind Guivi Sissaouri from Canada and before Othmar Kuhner from Germany and Hossein Rezaee from Iran to 2nd place.

At the Olympic Games in Athens Kenji Inoue lost featherweight his first fight against Damir Sachartinow from Uzbekistan, then won against Jung Young- Ho of South Korea and Lubos Cikel from Austria, lost against Massoud Moustafa Jokar from Iran and fought his way through with a win Wasil Fedorischin from Ukraine the bronze medal.

After Athens paused Kenji Inoue. In 2006 he undertook a comeback and won the " National Shakaijin Open" and in 2007 also at the " Emperor Cup " before Hidenori Yamamoto. Thereafter, however, he resigned for good. Since December 2008 he has been an assistant coach with the Japanese national team freestyle wrestler.

International success

Note: all the competitions in free style, OS = Olympic Games, Bantam weight = weight category up to 57 kg ( up to 1996) and 58 kg ( from 1997 ) of body weight, feather weight = weight category up to 60 kg body weight.