Personal information | |
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Full name | Heath Francis Young |
Nationality |
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Born |
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
21 September 1978
Height | 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) |
Weight | 66 kg (146 lb) |
Sport | |
Sport | Judo |
Event(s) | 66 kg |
Club | Tiger-Do Judo Academy |
Coached by | Terry Young |
Heath Francis Young (born September 21, 1978 in Sydney) is an Australian judoka, who competed in the men's half-lightweight category. He held five Australian titles in his own division, picked up a total of thirteen medals in his career, including two golds from the Oceania Championships, and represented his nation Australia in the 66-kg class at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Throughout his sporting career, Young trained full-time for the senior team at Tiger-Do Judo Academy in his native Sydney, under his personal coach, father, and sensei Terry Young.
Young qualified for the Australian squad in the men's half-lightweight class (66 kg) at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by topping the field of judoka and receiving a berth from the Oceania Championships in Noumea, New Caledonia. He opened his match with a more satisfying victory over Bolivia's Juan José Paz by points on waza-ari, before losing out in an earth-shattering ippon defeat with a stunning shoulder throw to Cuban judoka and eventual bronze medalist Yordanis Arencibia. In the repechage, Young gave himself a chance for an Olympic bronze medal, but crashed out in the first round of the draft, as Venezuela's Ludwig Ortíz tightly pinned him on the tatami with a kuzure kami shiho gatame (broken upper four-quarter hold-down) at one minute and ten seconds.