World championships Osaka Japan

First of all I must apologise to everyone for the world report coming so late. I have had a few technical problems and thus delays.

Good to see that we had some success in the world shiai this year. I really thought that we would have our second English men’s champion in the form of either Winston Gordon –90kg and or Craig Fallon. It was not to be but I am heartened by the fact that Winston lost after his fourth shiai, and Craig Fallon –60kg had a bad shoulder injury. My prediction is that these two judoka will be champions next year in the Olympics barring any foreseen circumstances- dodgy refereeing. Not forgetting our brave women: Karina Bryant +78kg & Open secured a bronze and Silver in the +78kg and the open respectively, no doubt that she will be the Olympic champion come Athens next.

A big disappointment came in the form of Kate Howey-70kg, who had to retire due to a Knee injury in the repecharge. She still secured fifth place. Without sounding biased, I am sure she could have secured 3^rd had she gone on to fight. So –70kg women’s place is assured for Britain in Athens.

Georgina Singleton –52kg, who came fifth and thus secured a –52kg place for Britain next year fought very well and as usual, gave it her very best. She was held down in Yoko shiho gatame to lose her third place contest. But no doubt she will be in fighting form come Athens.

Mathew Purssey –73kg was a bit of a dark horse flying threw the preliminaries and only losing in the pool final. He went out to an O uchi gari well executed by Victor Bivol of the Moldova.

Euan Burton –81kg crashed out in the first round to Alvaro Paseyro of Uruguay. Unlucky chap! So did Natalie Barry –57 kg who lost both her first fight and repecharge fight. The gorgeous Karen Roberts –63kg went out in the preliminaries in her second fight to a Belgium judoka Gella Vandecaveye. Rachel Wilding –78 kg crashed out in her first fight to Uta Kuhnen of Germany who went on to secure fifth place.

Not sure why we didn’t have a representative in the men’s –100kg and open weight categories.

The competition was a great display of tactics and super fitness by the judoka. The standard of judo varied depending on the weight and gender. The men’s -100kg had moments of drama and skill only equalled by top sit-coms. The end rounds showed fantastic judo by exponents such as Gill of Canada, Lamaire who won the silver and Inoue of Japan. Another favourite of mine was Italy’s Monti who was thrown for ippon by Lamaire. Monti was very aggressive and strong but his style was still recognisable as judo unlike the eastern Europeans who continue to play this game of strength and Sambo wrestling. But, it was a triumph for Kano’s Kodokan judo when Inoue blazed through the tournament winning his shiai with textbook techniques executed in an awesome manner. How the Japanese manage to keep on finding answers for the strength and mauling grips of the eastern Europeans I shall never now. The –100kg competition was great to watch.

Unfortunately not all men’s weights were such a great display of judo as everyone would have liked. The men’s –90kg and –81kg were a little disappointing. The fights were really battles of strength and penalties. –73kg weight category and below in the men’s were a little better and in some cases showed real promise with some quick ground work moves and Matrix like gymnastics.

A few things during the competition saddened me though which I think is a result of IJF rulings and guidelines. Groundwork was almost eliminated by the speed of the referees calling matte. Even before the judokas were able to initiate any attacking moves on the ground. The referees were relentless in not allowing the judoka to grapple. It is without doubt that the actions of the referees in the worlds and Olympics will have a knock on affect in the dojos around the world. Coaches and chief instructors will be telling their students to defend on the ground but not attack. There will be no point teaching the young judokas groundwork if they are not allowed to use it to win a contest. This is definitely a sad day for Judo.

With the pressure of shiai forcing dojos up and down the country to spend time solely practicing shiai there is little time to do other things such as kata or technical practice. But now to restrict that to just tachi waza is ridiculous, which if this drive persists will be the eventual outcome. Many of us watching could not believe the restriction of groundwork, it was as if judo was only a throwing art. We must remember that the only purpose of throws in judo is to get your attacker down to the ground- if you are lucky you will have knocked out your attacker on impact with the ground. Failing that we start to do our thing once down there. Shame that we have to venture over to the Brazilians to teach us- not remind us- the beauty and skill of groundwork, which we taught them. This must stop!!

There were rumours of players waxing their judogis during the competition. If true this falls foul of the spirit of judo and there should be an investigation. But, I would have thought you would be able to feel it straight away and would complain. No one did so maybe it was just a rumour after all. Probably peddled around by the eastern Europeans because they weren’t able to pin down the Japanese with their un-natural strength and gripping.

I also noticed the way the Koreans and the Japanese were tying their belts. They were tying belts in a way that they became very loose and as soon as the gripping started the suso of the jackets would come straight out again, giving them an unfair advantage. Bad Judo spirit!!

Overall, it wasn’t a bad affair but I hope the IJF and the powers that be reverse the current trend towards groundwork and other aspects of shiai. Oh, and before I forget with the emergence of the drug THG I hope the IJF start testing heavily. Every competitor should be tested at least 3 times over a period of 7 months before a major contest- B tournaments and above. Anyone found cheating should be banned for life!  

I just hope that we have a very successful Athens next year- God willing. C’mon Winnie, Simon, Eric get selected and kick ass! That’s the way boys.

See you later chaps

Sayonara