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| Kwon Young-woo | |
| Fullname: | Kwon Young-woo |
| Birth Date: | 4 May 1983 |
| Birth Place: | Seoul, South Korea |
| Country: | South Korea |
| Weight Class: | –81 kg |
| Worlds Rank: | 7 |
| Worlds Year: | 2007 |
| Regionals Type: | AS |
| Regionals Rank: | 1 |
| Regionals Year: | 2007 |
| Olympics Rank: | 7 |
| Olympics Year: | 2004 |
| Olympics Weight: | Men's 81 kg |
| Updated: | 23 February 2022 |
Kwon Young-woo (also Kwon Yeong-u, ko|권 영우; born May 4, 1981, in Seoul) is a South Korean judoka, who competed in the men's middleweight category.[1] He captured two golds in the 81-kg division at the Summer Universiade (2001 and 2003), completed a full set of medals at the Asian Judo Championships, and later finished seventh at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Kwon emerged as a frontrunner and a medal contender at the 2001 Summer Universiade in Beijing, China, where he took home the gold in the 81-kg class against Azerbaijan's Mehman Azizov.[2] [3] Two years later, Kwon defeated Spain's Óscar Fernández for an unprecedented second straight gold in his respective division.[4]
Kwon qualified for the South Korean squad in the men's half-middleweight class (81 kg) at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, by placing third and receiving a berth from the Asian Championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He thwarted France's Cédric Claverie and Cuba's Gabriel Arteaga in the prelims by a waza-ari and a yuko score, before being sanctioned with a penalty and falling short to Greek judoka and eventual Olympic champion Ilias Iliadis in a sudden-death quarterfinal match.[5] In the repechage round, Kwon ran off from his temporary falter with an effortless victory over Australia's Morgan Endicott-Davies, but fell short in a tremendous ippon to Brazilian judoka Flávio Canto within twenty-seven seconds, ending him in the seventh spot.[6] [7]