Training hard is one way to get you to the top in Judo, but it is imperative you also train smart.

Many fighters train twice a day, everyday for years, come to a major competition and get thrown for Ippon in a few seconds. This happened to elite athletes like Keiji Suzuki and Illias Iliadis in Beijing, both Olympic champions and world champions, which prevented them from fighting for a medal.

Being strong and fast is not enough, as there will always be someone stronger and faster. Having a strategy, like in anything in life, is very important. Knowing how to apply yourself in different situations requires learning to strategise.

Fighting against a weaker opponent

This supposed to be easier, but only on the surface. If your opponent is smart and has a strategy, you still might lost. With this kind of opponent, it’s best if you work in the middle of the mat, where you can control your opponent, make him/her look passive and defensive, lose his posture, get exhausted and fatigued. If you can’t throw, at least you can get your opponent to be penalised.

If you’re strong on Ne-Waze and get to the ground, work and apply your techniques. I see a lot of players that get to ground but prefer to wait for Matte although they are very proficient on Ne-Waza. There is no shame to win on Ne-Waza.

Fighting against a stronger opponent

Now you are the weaker opponent! The above should apply for the stronger one, but how can you still prevail at the end?

When fighting against a stronger opponent you cannot let go of your Kumi-kata and subside to the inevitable and just give up. If you can’t fight on your terms, you should never fight on your opponent’s terms. You don’t like his grip? break it and reach for yours. Fill trapped? create movement to diffuse the situation. Many times a strong opponent will drop his guard for a second or two which you can capitalise on.

Another strategy, is to use the boundaries. Working on the edge, but still in bounds will give you an easier exit when you need it. Works the same for Ne-Waza. It doesn’t mean you can just step out or you’ll be penalised. Once you attack and step out (even if the attack was not meant to be effective) time after time, if you’re opponent does not attack, s/he will be penalised. Also, your opponent will start to lose their clam and will be prone to mistake.

This still doesn’t mean that you can’t lose.

Working against opposite grips

Lets assume you are right handed and you’re fighting a left handed opponent. Sometime it is very hard to work against a left handed grip, especially if their strong and extreme in their stand. One strategy would be to grip your opponent’s right sleeve with your left arm and pull to you so s/he is no longer in an extreme stand. Make sure that when taking the sleeve you are not following your opponent, or you’ll end on your back.

The last important note is to keep your head up. Many time you see weaker fighters drop their heads because they’re tired or weaker, inviting their opponent to take a higher grip to control them. One way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to create movement, fight for the Kumi-kata, even if you’re not attacking much, just a foot sweep every now and then, but don’t just let you’re opponent take their favourite grip on you.

Train smart, not just hard.

Keiji Suzuki Vs Naidan Tuvshinbayar

Ilias Iliadis Vs Mark Huizinga

This development came as a consideration to players that are not able to represent their countries at the highest level of WC. Since the new Olympic qualification system is based on the World Ranking, the athlete owns his place, not his country as it was in the past, which will provide a much more fair environment to fight for their qualifications.

This new rule reminds me of the European Champions League in Soccer or Basketball, where you have countries that send 2-4 teams (and sometimes 5 teams, like when Liverpool won the Champions League but didn’t finish in the EPL in the top 4).

This is a great opportunity for players that wouldn’t have been considered before to compete for the right to represent their country in the Olympic Games. On the other hand, we already have WC with many fighters in most divisions, such as 73Kg and 81Kg, with over 60 and sometimes over 70 competitors. If all nations will send 2 athletes, the pool for the draw will be extremely huge, which means a lot of fights in order to win a medal. In addition, since the new repechage rules that only those who reach the quarter-finals are entitled to compete for a medal, players will have to fight 4-5 or even more fights just to get to the quarter-finals. The challenge is for the IJF to manage such Championships.

The bigger issue here is that the richer nations that can afford sending a second athlete will use the extra player to block players from other nations, which will prevent them from qualifying to the Olympic Games.

Having said all the above, in order to be a true champion, one needs to beat everyone, even if it means beating 2 from each country.

From 1 January 2010, there will be no warning of Shido, but a direct Hansoku-make. This is a very harsh penalty, as some referees will be ‘trigger’ happy to disqualify a player that grips or blocks the opponent’s leg.
One exception to this rule is when a player, Tori, take a cross-guard grip, i.e., gripping with his right arm over Uke’s right shoulder (or vice-versa, left over left) – provided that there is contact between Uke and Tori – Uke is allowed to attack by grabbing Tori’s leg.

There are a lot of grey areas with this rule, as the referees will have to interpret one’s intentions when attacking and grabbing Uke’s leg. The attack has to be genuine with a drive in the direction of the throw, i.e. if attacking with Kouchi-gari, Tori has to be pushing forward with his upper body in order to throw, and not in order to lift Uke’s foot of the mat to grab it.

On the other hand, this will lead to a more straight posture Judo, as players won’t be afraid that their opponent grabs their legs every time they get close.

The new rules dictate that a player mustn’t grip legs either to directly attack or block the opponent. Attacks such as Morote-gari, te-guruma, kata-guruma, Sukui-nage, Kibisu-gaeshi, Kuchiki-taoshi are not allowed anymore.
Any such attacks or blocking will be first penalised with a Shido and the second time with Hansokumake.

The important part of the rule that needs to be emphasised is the word ‘direct‘.
Any attack that involves griping of legs as an indirect movement is allowed. For example, when performing Kuchi-gari, and then gripping the Uke’s leg is legal. The same goes for Uchi-gari and grabbing the other leg. These actions are only legal if Uke provides a real reaction where he lifts his leg to avoid the attack.
As for counterattacks, once Tori performs an attack, Uke is able to grip Tori’s legs such as Te-guruma.

Another rule is related to the Golden Score part of the contest, where until now when a contest went into Golden Score, the score board was cleared. From 1st January 2010, the entire marking of the initial contest will be preserved during the Golden Score period. This is to allow the referee to take a decision, in case of no score during the Golden Score period, for the initial time and the Golden Score. Also, it means that if up until now first Shido in a Golden Score did not count as a winning score, with this rule, a first Shido can decide the winner (in case there were penalties in the initial part of the contest).

These rules can be a double edged sword. On the one hand, it can bring the classic Judo back, where you won’t see much ‘wrestling’ kind of techniques and will force players to be more creative with their Judo.
On the other hand, these rules might introduce some negative tactics, as players will try to prevent opponents from attacking for the sake of a leg movement to catalyse a leg grip, which will make players more rigid and static. Until today, there were some players that all they did was wait for others to attack and they will counterattack with Te-guruma. In case two of these players meet, the contest can be very boring and unattractive.

Another rule is the new refereeing system, where instead of having 3 referees, only 1 centre referee will referee the contest, with a “Care” system with 2 cameras filming the contest at 2 different angles will be set to help this unique referee.
This rule can provide some dangerous outcomes as many times a wrong score was given when there were 3 referees, so with one referee it will be even worse. I don’t think that the referee is going to check every decision that is unclear with the Refereeing commission that controls the cameras. In addition, the IJF hasn’t addressed the issue of taking a decision by one referee after an indecisive Golden Score, will he be taking it by himself, or after consulting the Refereeing Committee.

These rules will be further tested in the following IJF competitions: Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi (20-21 Nov 2009), Grand Prix of Qingdao (China; 28-29 Nov 2009), World Cup of Suwon (Korea; 4-5 Dec 2009), and Big Slam of Tokyo (Japan; 11-13 Dec 2009). In addition, these rules will be tested at the European U23 Championships in Antalya, TUR (20-22 Nov 2009), with the exception there will be 3 referees instead of 1.

The reason given was that some requirements hasn’t been fulfilled in time by the organisers. Given that this championship will put to the test the new rules (see this post) it is important to provide the athletes, referees, and officials with the best possible organisation.

This year we have had 27 countries on the list of medals.
Leading the medals tally, as always, Japan, with 7 medals (3 gold, 1 silver, and 3 bronze), followed by South Korea with 5 medals (2 gold and 3 bronze).
The hosting country, Netherlands, is 4th with 3 medals (1 gold, 2 silver).

Out of 56 medals awarded, 4 went to South America (Colombia with 1 gold, and Cuba with 2 silver and a bronze), 2 to Africa (Egypt with 2 bronze) and the rest to Europe and Asia.

The over all time medal table is lead by Japan with 229(!) medals (97 gold, 64 silver, and 68 bronze).

From this world championship onwards, the world championships will be held annually instead of once every 2 years, as it’s been up until now. The next world championship will be held in Tokyo, Japan on 9-13 September, 2010.

Men -100Kg
This category, with 43 entrants, had several competitors that in a given day could win a medal. This list includes the world champion Luciano Correa from Brazil, Grol Henk from the Netherlands, Elco Van Der Geest who represented Belgium for the first time, the European champion, Tagir Khaibulaev from Russia, Takamasa Anai from Japan, Olympic and World champion under 90Kg, Irakli Tsirekladze from Georgia, Daniel Brata from Romania, bronze medallist Oreydis Despaigne from Cuba, and Olympic bronze medallist from Athens, Ariel Zeevi from Israel.

All of these players, except Grol and Anai were knocked-out of the competition at an early stage, when only Grol reached the semi-final.

Grol, silver at the last European championship, bronze in last year’s Olympic Games, had suffered a knee injury before the championship, but although dragging in leg, he used is powerful grip to paralyse his opponents. In the semi-final he fought Artem Bloshenko from Ukraine and after 3:35 minutes without any risky attacks from either side, Grol executed a well-timed Kouchi-gari to be awarded full Ippon.

In the final Grol met Maxim Rakov from Kazakhstan, who beat Elmar Gasimov from Azerbijian. While no clear domination was seen, Rakov managed to role Grol for a Yuko after 2:31 minutes. A minute to the end, Rakov had been penalised and the fighters were even once again. 20 seconds later, Rakov executed a drop Soei-nage and was awarded an Ippon and the Gold medal. Grol was very disappointed with this loss and for long seconds was lying on the mat with his head in his hands. Great performance by the young Kazakh that moved into this division a year ago.

The Bronze medal went to the Japanese and to Ramadan Darwish from Egypt.

Men +100Kg
Teddy Riner had won his third(!) world championship and he is only 20 years old, 1 of which is the World Open Judo championship. In the final he had beaten Oscar Bryson from Cuba by penalties.

Other events at this division were the first round lose of Alexander Mikhaylin to the local Dutch, Grim Vuijstres, who lost to Yasuyuki Muneta, who in turn lost to Gankhuyag Dorjpalam from Mongolia. Muneta, who injured his shoulder at the beginning of the match, could not overcome to pain to perform at his best and lost by Hansoku-make.

The Bronze medals went to Marius Paskevicius from Lithuania, and Abdullo Tangriev from Uzbekistan.

Women +78Kg
This weight division has been dominated by Wen Tong of China, who hasn’t lost a match since February 2007. This is her fifth(!) World championship title after winning the World Open Judo championship, World Championship in 2003, 2005, and 2007. She has also won this division in Beijing last year.
All of her fights together took under 7 minutes, winning all the fights with Ippons. In the final she met Karina Bryant from Great Britain, who she met twice before at the previous 2 World championship finals. The Chinese girl was very aggressive and scored an Ippon after 1:36 minutes with a drop Seoi-nage.

The Bronze medals went to Olympic Silver medallist from Beijing and Olympic champion from Athens, Maki Tsukda from Japan, and Olympic bronze medallist from Beijing, the 19 year old, Idalis Ortiz Boucort from Cuba.

Men -90Kg
This category provided a few upsets when the World champion under 81Kg, Camilo Tiago from Brazil, lost to Kyu-Won Lee from Korea by Ippon after less than 2 minutes. The other upsets include the Silver European medallist, Varlam Liparteliani from Georgia, who lost to Illias Iliadis, the 2-time Silver World medallist from the last 2 World championships and the Olympic champion from Athens under 81Kg in the first fight, who in turn lost to Milan Randl from Slovakia in the next round.

In the semi-finals we saw the Korean fight Hesham Mesbah from Egypt, who won the Bronze medal in last year’s Olympic games, and Kiril Denisov from Russia fighting Dilshod Choriev from Uzbekistan.
The 20 year old Korean, executing his drop-Seoi-nage threw the Egyptian to a Waza-ari, and an Ippon to progress to eh final to meet the Russian, who beat the Uzbek by Yuko after 5 minutes. In the final, the Korean threw the Uzbek with his Seoi-nage for an Ippon after 2:13 minutes to win the Gold.
The Egyptian and Uzbek won the Bronze after beating the Slovakian and Spaniard respectively.

Women -70Kg
This category was dominated by Yuri Alvear from Colombia who finished all her fights with an Ippon. Alvear has improved significantly after finishing 7th in last year’s Olympic Games. On her way to win the gold, she had beaten the local Edith Bosch, who finished second in Athens and third in Beijing, by Ippon 1 second to the end of the fight. In the final she met Anett Meszaros from Hungary and after leading by a Waza-Ari, threw her opponent with Morote-gari for an Ippon 3 seconds to the end of the fight.

The Bronze medals went to Houda Miled from Tunisia, and Mina Watanabe from Japan.

Women -78Kg
The Dutch finally got their first gold medal at this championship, when Marhinde Verkerk beat Maryna Pryshchepa from Ukraine. Her way was long and hard, as each of her fights went for the full 5 minutes and 2 of them went into golden score. Nevertheless, the crowd was ecstatic as she was declared the World champion.

The Bronze medals went to Heide Wollert from Germany and Yi Sun from China.

Men -81Kg
This category, with 54 entrants, was dominated by the 2009 European champion from Russia, Ivan Nifontov, who at his first fight straggled against the Canadian and won by points after 5 minutes, but afterwards won all his fights with a magnificent display of Judo, throwing all his opponents by Ippon, including the Silver medallist from 2009 European championship from Italy, and the Olympic champion from Beijing from Germany. In the final he had beaten Siarhei Shundzikau from Belarus with a Sumi-gaeshi.

The Bronze medals went to Ole Bischof from Germany, and Jae-Bum Kim from Korea, the Silver medallist from Beijing.

Women -63Kg
Yoshie Ueno from Japan tool the Gold in this category after fighting 5 fights for a total of 7:11 minutes and winning all by Ippon, including one on the local Dutch girl, Elisabeth Willeboordse, the Bronze medallist from Beijing.

Willeboordse had worked much harder to reach the final, beating the Mongolian, Australian, and Alice Schlesinger from Israel, to whom she lost the Bronze medal fight at the last European championship. The semi-final against the European champion and Olympic Bronze medallist from Athens, Urska Zolnir from Slovenia, went into golden score and was won by a shido.

The Bronze medals went to Claudia Malzahn from Germany, who beat the Slovenian with Osae-komi and to 21 year old Bronze medallist in the last 2 European championships, Alice Schlesinger from Israel, who fought beautiful and applied great tactics to beat the Russian by Waza-ari and Yuko.

The men’s under 73Kg had 62 competitors and provided very interesting fights from the beginning.
The European champion, Volodymyr Soroka from Ukraine, met Chol Su Kim from North Korea (PRK) and was beaten by Yuko to part from the competition in an early stage. Kim, an unknown face in the international arena, managed to through Dirk Van Tichelt from Belgium by Ippon in the semi-final with Ouchi-gari after a failed Kata-guruma from Tichelt. Tichelt finished third after beating Sezer Huyuz from Turkey.
On the other side of the pool, Ki-Chun Wang from Korea, the reigning world champion and second from Beijing, had beaten the Georgian, David Kevkhishvili, (who had beaten the Japanese earlier), and the Turkish fighter to reach the semi-final, there he met the Russian Mansur Isaev, 5th in Europe, who finished 3rd here.
In the final, a Korean derby, the world champion prevailed and won his second consecutive world championship at the age of 20!

The final 4 at women’s under 52Kg included the Bronze medalist from Beijing, Misato Nakamura from Japan, Song Hui Jo from North Korea (PRK), Silver medalist in Beijing and the worlds 2007 under 48Kg, Yanet Bermoy from Cuba, and Romy Tarangul from Germany. After beating the North Korean in the semi-final by Ippon after 2:36 minutes, the final against the Cuban girl went for the full length, where the Japanese girl won by Waza-ari. The Bronze medals went to Tarangul from Germany and Ana Carrascosa from Spain.

In the women’s under 57Kg we saw a great performance by French girl Morgane Ribout who had thrown the Japanese girl in the semi-final with a beautiful O-goshi as the Japanese girl tried to perform her own technique. Ribout met the European champion 2009, and Silver and Bronze medalist from previous world championships (under 52Kg) and won after 5 minutes by Yuko.
The Bronze medal went to Kifayat Gasimova from Azerbaijan and Hedvig Karakas fro Hungary.