Japan's insistence on traditional ways in judo has paid off with a record haul of eight gold medals at the Athens Olympics, producing a new heavyweight warrior along the way.


Japan's judo officials have always stressed technique in trying for knock-out 'ippon' victories, bucking the trend by emerging rivals to rely on muscle power for any marginal points.

So Japanese judokas have been helped by a change in scoring styles by global referees, who now emphasise technique and execution rather than offences made while trying to score, such as a false attack or overly defensive posture.

A perfect example came in the showpiece men's over-100 kilogram heavyweight final on Friday, where Japan's open-weight world champion Keiji Suzuki used a variery of leg throws to dump four of five opponents by ippon.

Suzuki stopped Sydney Olympic bronze medallist Tamerian Tmenov of Russia in the final with a leg sweep, restoring Japanese pride after his compatriot Kosei Inoue suffered a shock defeat in the under-100 kilogram light heavyweight on Thursday.

Suzuki, in Inoue's shadow before moving up from his same weight class, brought the premier judo title back to Japan for the first time in 16 years.

Japan finished the week-long judo competition with three men's gold medals and five women's — against one each for Belarus, China, Georgia, Germany, Greece and South Korea.

Japan's previous best judo title haul was four in Sydney, as well as at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, when only the men's competition was held.

"We have very good techniques, not just raw power or crafty strategy," said former Olympic and world heavyweight champion Yasuhiro Yama$hita, deputy chief of Japan's Olympic judo team.

"We don't become defensive after scoring a point. We fight to the end, aiming for an ippon," said Yama$hita, arguably the best judoka of all time.

International Judo Federation (IJF) referee commissioner Takao Kawaguchi said that his commission, newly selected after the world championships, had honoured the essence of judo at the Athens Games.

"At this tournament, we have seen to it that matches are settled on technical points, not penalties," he said.

The subtle shift might be a victory for Japan, which has fought in vain to make changes to traditional judo.

At the 2000 Sydney Games, Japan accepted the use of contrasting blue and white clothes in a match for the benefit of viewers, a drive which helped judo survive as a made-for-television Olympic sport.

Japan had insisted on white only as a "symbol of purity."

Another change at Athens was the introduction of a sudden-death system in which the match can be won by the fighter who scored any point, however marginal, in extra time after a draw in the regular five minutes.

Japanese say the so-called 'golden score' formula, already used at the 2003 world championships, goes against judo's spirit of going for ippon.

Old and new stars shone on the Athens judo mat.

Japan's Tadahiro Nomura won the men's under-60 kilogram bantamweight for a record three straight time.

His compatriot Ryoko Tani, who won the women's world under-48 kilogram bantamweight title for a record six straight times, shrugged off a fresh foot injury to retain her Olympic crown.

Georgian-born Ilias Iliadis won the men's under-81 kilogram light middlweight to bring Greece their first Olympic judo gold and Georgian Zurab Zviadauri triumped in the men's under-90 middleweight.

"These Olympics have shown once again that judo in Japan is not a sport, but a tradition," Tmenov said after lifting the heavyweight silver. "In every weight, they have not just one but five or six persons. If I go to Japan and train for four years for the next Olympics, I will win."

http://sport.iafrica.com/olympics/news/342833.htm

Ummm horray

yea it was pretty scary how they seemed to have swept the Judo competition away.....

they are so high in the rankings cause of Judo this year.

i never seen the judo tournaments because they don't broadcast that in my local stations. but the japanese did very well in other areas like swimming and gymnastics.