Sagi Muki

Sagi Aharon Muki (or Moki; Hebrew: שגיא אהרון מוקי; born 17 May 1992) is an Israeli Olympic and former world champion half-middleweight judoka.

[2] As of June 2015 he still resided with his parents, for reasons of convenience and proximity to the Wingate Institute sports training facility.

[23] He is a student at Reichman University, with a double major in Economics and Business Administration, and in the school's hall of fame.

[22][26] His club is Maccabi Netanya, and he met future Israeli judoka world champion Yarden Gerbi there when he was four years old.

[40][41] In June, he won another IJF World Tour gold medal, at the 2014 Havana Grand Prix in the under 73 kg category.

[22] He defeated Nugzar Tatalashvili of Georgia in the final, throwing him for an ippon twenty-eight seconds prior to the end of their match, and after his victory he pointed with a smile at the Israeli flag on his judogi.

[21][22][46][48] In October, Muki won a bronze medal in the 2015 Paris Grand Slam[49][50] after defeating Shuai Sun from China.

[51] Two weeks later on 31 October, he won a bronze medal in the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam after defeating Belgian Dirk Van Tichelt.

[52][53][54] In August 2016, Muki competed for the first time in his career for Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics at the age of 24, two months after suffering two slipped discs in his lower back.

In the semi-finals, Muki lost to Rustam Orujov of Azerbaijan, and subsequently he was also defeated by Lasha Shavdatuashvili of Georgia for the bronze medal.

[56][57][58][59][60] On 7 October, Muki competed at the 2017 Tashkent Grand Prix, his first competition since the 2016 olympics, and won the gold medal.

[61][62][63] On 27 April, Muki took part in the 2018 European Championships in Tel Aviv and won the gold medal in the under 81 kg weight category.

He went on to defeat László Csoknyai of Hungary by ippon in the quarter final and Aslan Lappinagov of Russia by shidos in the semi-final.

In the final, Muki faced Matthias Casse of Belgium and won by ippon due to 2 waza-ari scores.

[70][71][72][73] After beating 2017 Pan American champion, Brazilian Eduardo Yudy Santos, in his first match, Muki lost to Austrian Shamil Borchashvili in the round of 16, ending his part of the individual contest.

Sagi Muki, world champion, in 2019