It is fantastic to see Sky broadcasting Judo on a regular basis. It is even more fantastic to see the quality of the broadcast and the quality of the Judo. They are clearly following the World Circuit and until now any Judo shown on television has been the European or World Championships and has been pretty poor quality. The producers of these programmes historically almost seemed to making the programmes in the interest of diversity rather than trying to show Judo in its best light and producing a magnificent show for the viewer. This time however they have teamed up with Fighting films and are now creating programmes for the sake of the programme itself.
Two weeks ago there was the Dusseldorf Grand Prix which was great, good Judo well put together and on Tuesday the 8th there was the Rio Grand Prix which was even better.
In recent years I have been critical of the quality of Judo at European and World level with Russian style wrestling seemingly overtaking pure Judo. I have never knocked Russian style Judo for its excitement and skill but I am a purist when it comes to Judo and prefer traditional techniques and rules. It also seemed that scoring had become really weak and techniques that would have scored a simple Yuko ten years ago were scoring Ippon now.
The Rio Grand Prix however had some of the best Judo I have seen for many, many years and perhaps surprisingly some of the finest Judo coming from Sobirov of Uzbekistan. Not surprising that these guys can throw but some beautiful pure Judo and multiple right and left hand techniques. The Japanese fighter at this weight was pretty spectacular, the Mongolian at 66kg and even through to Elco Van Der Geest at -100kg (fantastic Ippon in the final against the Japanese fighter).
The Brazilians look as strong as ever and they have clearly elevated Judo to a major sport in their country. With the new coverage and a bit of time lets hope we can do the same for Judo in the UK.
Great job boys.
Paulsheals's Blog 