- Its unclear to me if the new IJF rules worked: often times there is an opportunity for a beautiful kata guruma, yet you cannot do it and you just stay there, gripping, and incurring shidos. Does this really make Judo look better ?
2. Many matches were decided on shidos ! Some players, like the French, play hardcore tactics. Always running to the edge of the mat, so they can escape when needed.
3. Refs allowed more groundwork which was great and some players were not ready for it and lost.
4. Too many matches to golden score. Too much defensive gripping.
5. Too many tourists in these games --- some players get awesome draw and get a tourist and the other needs to fight a Japanese. Guess who will be more tired ? Esp. with the short duration between matches.
6. Stevens is a warrior and Jimmy Pedro is awesome. Brazilian female coach must STFU. Surprised nobody kicked her out.
IJF must find a way to facilitate more Judo, less defensive gripping.
what happened to illiadis this year? got bronze, i guess he hasnt had the run up now that riner has anyhow?
Is he still the best male judoka of the last half-full decade after Riner?
Also a bit outside this olympics but why did Nomura manage to win 3 olympics and not a worlds in between? or did he?
I have been saying since the new rules came out in 2009 that need to do something about the negative grip fighting in general and counting as an attack those leg "kicks" that have no practical scoring value except get in an attack to avoid a shido.
Iliadis struggled and used a lot of energy in matches. Just wasn't his day.
Many top level fighters avoided mat work to conserve energy and to win by throws, penalties or golden score and was more strategic.
Overall the draws were pretty even. And yes there were contestants who did not belong in the Olympics and made the earlier rounds less competitive but I saw this in other sports also. But this is the Olympics to draw from athletes around the world.
one issue is, the qualifying process in Europe is FAR more difficult than anywhere else. So many athletes are exhausted. Something needs to be done about it.
when did the golden score come to be?
i suppose in one way, its better than a dec but then on the flip, i suppose many stall it out to get there to win by a yuko?
judom - one issue is, the qualifying process in Europe is FAR more difficult than anywhere else. So many athletes are exhausted. Something needs to be done about it.
what happened to there being multiple reps from the same country?
There have never been multiple reps from the same country at the Olympics. That's at the World Championships.
As for Golden Score, that started prior to 2008, but I can't say exactly when.
I do agree with judom that there is too much negative gripping and fighting in that area.
One of the areas that I hope will get more leeway on the whole leg attack rule is the "bent over exception."
In the original declaration about the leg attack rule, one of the exceptions noted was that if your opponent put you in a bent over defensive posture (basically, if they gripped you over the back and then pulled in) that a direct leg attack here was okay.
However, that seems to have not really been given attention. There was lots of leeway in the counter-attack exception given, but the combination exception and the bent over exception have seemingly been given little leeway. The one hansoku make I saw of the Olympics was, in my opinion, legal because of the combination attempt by the Brazilian woman who attempted it.
If the IJF gave more leeway on the leg attack rule, to permit more usage in the situations where someone is doing a lot of negative gripping, you might see less "yuko riding"
I talked to a high US level player one time and he was #1 fighting #2 and he told me the wasn't going to be thrown. You can win with that mindset in judo today with the new rules by incurring shido's on your opponent. If you go up yuko (2 shidos) your opponent can't win unless with a wazari/ippon. If they manage to score a yuko then you go into overtime and take your chances with a decision by flags. But you have to know how to play this game. Ole Bishof is a master at it and so are other high level judokas. With the Olympics ever four years who is going to take a chance and lose a close match? Win by shidos/ OT flags.
judom - one issue is, the qualifying process in Europe is FAR more difficult than anywhere else. So many athletes are exhausted. Something needs to be done about it.
just curious, what in your opinion is more difficult?
mostly, the European players usually need to get their points for ranking via the EU tournaments which are harder to win and get points at, than other tournaments like those in the America's (where besides Brazil, the rest are not strong).
also, the ones that qualify not via the direct route, but via the zone (e.g. EJU, or whatever) are usually weaker than the players available in Europe.
Perhaps its not a problem of the IJF qualification process directly, but more for the EU federations that make the players participate in too many tournaments.
thats true, cant argue with that much.
i think the euro tournaments are much harder.
however, there are a lot more opportunities for european players to compete.
for example in the americas, there are very few events where players can secure points.
they still have to go to europe for the big events and deal with jetlag, a different environment, etc, which is much easier for europeans.
i think prior to the rule changes about direct qualification, europe was hands down the hardest place to qualify, but now that its based on rankings, i think there are costs and benefits of living in europe.
i do think that the direct qualification combined with special invites and regional qualification makes the level of competition very unbalanced.
ive always said the hardest tournament in terms of competition is the all japan open weight championships just because there are lots of matches and every single guy there is going to be pretty decent. no easy matches.
I would say Japan Open and Paris Open are telling tournaments.
I would say its not even the problem with qualification in Europe. Federation, for various reasons (money) need to make athletes compete in various world cups.
There are too many people qualifying via the federation route, not via rankings. Which is quite unfair.
They should do that say for a world cup, not for Olympics. Start them slowly, why go to Olympics directly ?
The problem is, judom, if they go strictly off rankings, you end up with people complaining that qualification for the Worlds or Olympics becomes strictly a money game. Who can get to the most point tournaments and amass the most? Meanwhile, you have players like the girl from North Korea, which frankly, if forced to go for points at the same amount as the others, would probably bankrupt the entire North Korean economy.