Five years earlier, in 1993, Racing Club de France won the European Club Cup in Berlin by beating JC Frankfurt from Germany.    

In 1976 Russian Alexandre Iatskevich became the 80 kgs European Junior Champion in Poland. Two years later, Iatskevich won his first of three European senior titles at 86 kgs. ‘Sasja’, born in Latvia, became an important head coach of the Belgium team. In 1976, the year of his breakthrough, he also won the World junior title at 86 kgs one month later.

SOURCE www.judoinside.com

Inoue to miss Kodokan weight category championships 

TOKYO - Kosei Inoue, who missed out on a chance for a second straight gold medal in the men's 100-kilogram at the Athens Olympics, will skip the weight class nationals next month citing lack of enthusiasm, judo officials said Wednesday. Inoue, who came home empty-handed from Athens this summer, will sit out the Nov. 20-21 Kodokan Cup in Chiba, which also serves as the first qualifier for next September's world championship in Cairo. Medalists from Athens are exempt from the qualifier. "He (Kosei) is not in the fighting mood right now," said head coach Hitoshi Saito.

Inoue, who would be seeking his fourth straight title at the worlds, has yet to decide whether he will compete in Cairo though missing a qualifier would not be viewed as a serious minus for the 26-year-old.                   

By Hans van Essen, 29 October 2004 - www.judoinside.com

Without doubt the most sensational upset of the Athens judo was the failure of Kosie Inoue of Japan to defend his light-heavyweight 100 kgs gold medal. Famed for his technical prowess and unbeaten in any major World event since 1999 Inoue was forecast by every judo expert and self proclaimed pundit to retain his Sydney title. But not only did he not contest the gold he failed to even fight for bronze.

His first contest against Mekic of Bosnia and Herzogovina (BIH) was a warning when he mistimed his legendary uchimata (inner thigh throw) being pushed to the mat where he later won thecontest by a strangle. He scrapped through his next fight against 32 year old former Olympic and World champion Antal Kovacs by the narrowest of margins, a koka.  By his third match he seemed to be back in stride when he threw Martin Kelly of Australia for ippon with an uchimata, but ominously he needed a half step extra to position himself for the perfect throw pictured alongside.

3rd match: Inoue throws Kelly of Australia with his trademark uchimata

His nemeses proved to be the erratic former European Champion ElcoVan der Geest of Holland who dominated Inoue head to head from the outset finishing the match with an ippon. Finally, to add insult to injury Miraliyev of Azerbaijan countered Inoue for ippon during his fifth match in the repercharge, forcing Inoue to finish the day tight-lipped and head bowed in front of the massed Japanese press especially there to report their certain seventh judo gold medal but now desperate to know what went wrong.

4th match: Inoue and Van der Geest head to head

6th match: Downcast Inoue and Japanese press who expected gold

Hopefully, for judo, the experts and the pundits, Inoue is suffering no more than a 'Tiger Woods bad spell' that will see him return in much better form for next year's World Championships in Egypt.

OCTOBER 16th ROUSEY WINS JUNIOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

BUDAPEST, Hungary (Oct. 16, 2004) - Ronda Rousey of Santa Monica, Calif., became just the second American to win the Junior World Championships with her victory over Jing Jing Mao of China in the women’s 63 kilogram category in Budapest Hungary. “This is just unbelievable,” said Rousey of her win. “Coming off the Olympics, I was a little disappointed, but I put that behind me and focused all my energy on today and it all paid off. I’m just so happy right now.”  This victory, Rousey’s first major win in international competition since finishing ninth at the Olympics in Athens, solidifies the seventeen-year-old high school junior’s place as one of the most dominant and promising athletes in international women’s judo.SEE THE FULL TEXT VIA THIS LINK

Lucia Morico, ecstatic at winning a bronze medal. How would she have reacted if she had won the gold?

Twenty years ago at the Los Angeles Olympics the defending 95 kgs champion was one of the greatest judo men to have ever stepped onto the mat. He was Robert Van der Walle from judo mad Belgium and at 30 was at the very peak of the competitive pyramid with gold medals from the Olympics, Europeans and innumerable other international events Inevitably he was widely predicted to repeat his Olympic victory. 

His first match was against Capt. Leo White Jnr of the US Army whose hobbies included reading and computer programming. At 26 he had the modest distinction of being four times US champion, Alaskan Open champion and earlier that year had won silver and bronze medals at the German and Belgium Opens. White was not at the very bottom of the pyramid but he was certainly not in the same class as Van der Walle.

The match was expected to be entirely one-sided to the benefit of Van der Walle but very soon White, in front of his home crowd, got underneath the Belgium and launched him like a NASA rocket dumping the Moscow Olympic champion  squarely on his back for ippon with harai-makikomi. Two contests later White was eliminated preventing Van der Walle fighting in the repercharge.

Eight years on at the Barcelona Games, having missed the Seoul Olympics, Leo White Jnr stood opposite the reigning world 95 kgs champion, Stephane Traineau of France. Again White disrespectfully threw the hot favourite for ippon and then shortly afterwards lost his next match preventing Traineau returning to the medals via the repercharge. I wonder how many other Leo White Juniors are waiting in the wings to teach the favourites to never underrate their opponents?

DAVID FINCH 10th August 2004

Tani is the real 'Miss Dynamite' of judo, explosively attacking from different directions as though a Japanese 'firecracker'. At 29, age has slowed her down a little and is likely to be her toughest opponent at Athens.  At the September Osaka Worlds, before her marriage to Baseball star Yoshitomo Tani 30, she was judged to be the more combative because her opponent, Frederique Jossinnet FRA, was considered not agressive enough and penalised accordingly.

Gold at Sydney (above) and World gold at Munich 2001 (first right) and a silver performance at 1992 Barcelona Olympics final against Cecile Nowak FRA

The other test of her motivation that she faces is being a celebrity newly-wed to a multi-millionaire star baseball player whose paypacket - without commercial endorsements - is now worth up to 310m yen (circa $3m) with under performing Pacific League club, Oryx Blue Wave. Although the Japanese Judo Queen and 'full-time' Toyota employee has no financial worries she has been prevented from 'cashing in' on her celebrity status with lucrative commercial appearances because of Japanese Olympic rules. Such a change in lifestyle may very well take the edge off her performance - so her many opponents hope!

Ryoko Tamura (left) poses for Japanese photographers at Munich 2001 and raucous Japaneses fans celebrate Tamura's victory in Sydney

Athens is expected to be Ryoko Tani's last major tournament and, like Olympic champions before her, she is likely to retire to family life, the pitter-patter of tiny feet, and the highly remunerative world of commercial sponsorship and product endorsement that surrounds such a charismatic Olympian.

Athens Olympic super-lightweight (60 kgs) hopefuls
The two Europeans most likely to feature in the medals at Athens are 21 year old Craig Fallon GBR (left) and Ludwig Paischer AUT (23) in the centre. Both have recently been beaten by defending double Olympic Champion Tadahiro Nomura of Japan.  Fallon, who usually has a bandage round his head from his gymnastic avoidance of throws, fought for gold in the Osaka Worlds last September but lost by ippon to a rear throw (kosoto-gaki) by Min Ho Choi of Korea; the only direction that he is vulnerable to. Paischer won the Europeans at Bucharest while Fallon trained in Japan at the cauldron of judo.

Tadihiro Nomura JPN, fast approaching his 30th birthday at Athens, will be trying for his third gold - a feat yet to be achieved by any judo player.  At the February Super 'A' Tourni de Paris he beat both fighters by ippon throwing Paischer in the final to the front with uchimata and Fallon to the rear with ouchi-gari. But Fallon put up the most resistance spinning catlike (below) out of a seoinage throw that would have winded Paischer and any other opponent for that matter.

The head to head tally of the two Europeans is three wins for Fallon out of four meetings. At the April British Open Fallon's coach, Fitzroy Davies said "We never dreamt that Craig would be fighting for gold at World level this early. We had planned reaching that level in time for the Beijing Olympics in 4 years time." At the Open he moved him up a category to 66 kgs to prevent Paischer learning more of Fallon's style. Consequently Paischer scooped the 60 kgs gold while Fallon, in the wrong division, had to be content with bronze. The Europeans were the same, rather than let the two meet again Fallon was sent to Japan to work on avoiding rear throws. On Saturday the 14th August, when all three will be fighting to reach the final, we'll know if the strategy was successful. 

Karen Briggs (gold)