Old judo clip shared with false claim that Korean athlete bit opponent at Asian Games

Published on October 19, 2023 at 09:12
2 min read
By AFP Hong Kong, AFP South Korea

An old clip of a judo match has been shared thousands of times in social media posts that falsely claim it shows a South Korean athlete biting her Japanese opponent at the 2023 Asian Games in China. The incident in fact took place at the 2013 Judo Grand Slam in Tokyo. Neither of the wrestlers seen in the video competed in the Asian Games, which closed on October 8 in Hangzhou.

"South Korean athlete bites Japanese athlete!" reads a Chinese-language caption with a post on short-video-sharing app Douyin from September 27, 2023.

The caption includes the hashtag "Hangzhou Asian Games", which were held in the eastern Chinese city in September and October this year (archived link).

The accompanying clip shows two judo wrestlers tussling, with one subsequently sinking her teeth into the other's hand. Text overlaid on the video and a voiceover in Mandarin say the Korean competitor bit her Japanese rival.

A screenshot, taken on October 9, 2023, of the false Douyin post

Hosts China dominated the Asian Games with 201 gold medals, while Japan finished second on 52 and Korea came in third with 42.

The same judo clip has been shared elsewhere alongside similar false claims on Weibo, Douyin and YouTube.

However, the biting in fact took place during the semi-finals of the Judo Grand Slam in Tokyo in November 2013.

Combined reverse image and keyword searches on Google found the clip corresponds to longer footage of the match uploaded to YouTube by Japanese television station TV Tokyo on November 30, 2013 (archived link).

This video's Japanese-language title reads: "Judo Grand Slam Tokyo 2013 women's 63kg semi-finals."

On-screen graphics identify the Japanese wrestler as Abe Kana and the South Korean athlete as Joung Da-woon (archived links here and here).

The clip of Joung biting Abe can be seen at one minute, 41 seconds in the TV Tokyo video, while the footage of the two tussling appears at the one-minute, 37-second mark.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the false posts (left) and TV Tokyo's video (right):

Two screenshot comparisons between the video in the false posts (left) and TV Tokyo's video (right)

Joung's actions drew criticism from Japanese social media users, which can be seen in posts from November 2013 here, here and here (archived links here, here and here).

According to a report by South Korean news agency Yonhap from November 30, 2013, Joung lost the match to Abe and finished the event with a bronze medal (archived link).

Abe went on to win gold in the women's 63kg category, according to records on the website of the International Judo Federation (archived link).

There is no record of either Abe or Joung competing in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, according to a list of competitors on the judo federation's website (archived link).

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