PDA

View Full Version : Olympic Judo Poll results (informal)



John Lindsey
25th September 2000, 19:10
Over the past week, I asked about 50 people about their perception of Judo and the Olympics. These people were not connected with martial arts per se, but were following the Games on the TV.

Some didn't even know that Judo was in the Olympics. Others thought that it was not very flashy, and that Judo needed some new (and sexy) uniforms like what the swimmers were wearing :). Others expressed the opinion that it was "too Eastern" an art to become interested in, compared to the Western martial arts of shooting, fencing and archery.


One person thought that Judo was not an Olympic event. My question to our members is if a sport can be removed from the list of events? I can't recall hearing such a thing happening. In a way, the press does this by their lack of coverage as in the case of Judo.

Ramirez
25th September 2000, 19:49
Hi John, I do recall that there used to be single synchonized swimming as an event (of course the standard line was always "synchronized with what?"). I don't think it is an Olympic sport anymore, of course it could have been deleted by the sport's ruling body, not the Olympic committee.

Judo is an Olympic sport as far as I am concerned. If Greco-Roman wrestling is, then Judo sure should be. In fact, I think Judo is more of a sport than some of the other events. Consider synchonized swimming or figure skating, both are very athletic but since they depend on judges to determine the winner I consider them a competition, not a sport. Let's not even get into the equestrian events.

Joseph Svinth
25th September 2000, 22:52
Yes, quite a number of sports have come and gone at the Olympics; follow the Australian university URL listed at "TKD in the Olympics" at Karate and you'll see the list.

Be that as it may, I don't think judo is in any danger of being eliminated. Why? Because if you eliminated judo, then the Japanese medal count at the Olympics would plummet like a rock.

TKD is also in no danger of elimination, as TKD is expected to provide about a third of South Korea's total medals (and judo and archery most of the rest).

The Cubans, French, Italians, Russians, Brazilians, Dutch, and Belgians also would likely support the retention of judo.

Bottom line: Judo inflates Japan's medal count in the Olympics, and Japan will pay money to keep things that way. Judo does not help the US medal count, and as a result USA sponsors will refuse to give the sport advertising dollars or air time.

Rupert Murdoch's new internationalism may change this; seems he recently figured out that there are non-English-speaking markets in the world. This sounds otiose when written, but is something most Americans truly don't appreciate yet.

MarkF
26th September 2000, 09:55
It may have been only a "perceived" threat, but the IOC did tell the IJF they had to do something about making judo more entertaining, and competitive. The Syney Olympics was supposed to be do or die for judo in the Olymoics, and there were many, many changes, but just as it did nothing to lift sagging revenues directly, Joe is right that it will probably never be dumped. Considering Japan took five gold medals, four in judo (or was it six and five or seven and six), it will always be there, but it is becoming less and less judo, and more and more one of a few types of wresting.

Mark

Walker
26th September 2000, 20:11
Joe Svinth!!! Scoring a 9.9 for the use of “Otiose” in a coherent sentence!
“This sounds otiose when written, but is something most Americans truly don't appreciate yet.”
The crowd goes wild!
A true champion!
:karatekid

Neil Hawkins
27th September 2000, 00:46
I would never have known what Otiose meant if hadn't been Word-of-the-Day on August the 10th! But then again I am Lazy and indolent at the best of times. ;)

So far I have found the Olympic coverage soporific (today's word of the day!), there has been no Wrestling, no quality boxing, no TKD and virtually no judo. The only bouts I saw were 100kg+ and very poor quality, an Australian was made to look like a dilettante (3rd September) by being beaten in 40 seconds with an Ogoshi, and not even a good one at that.

Now I could expatiate about this but what's the point, the media come up with a canard and all attention is back on the Athletics or Swimming. I won't inveigh them any more, I think I'll just defenestrate my TV! (January 5, 13, 20 and 25 respectively :D)

Thanks to http://www.dictionary.com, I couldn't do this without you!

Neil

MarkF
27th September 2000, 08:39
Neil,
I thought you had said sophomoric on first glance, and it (the American coverage of the Games) certainly fit that description, as well.

As far as judo goes, I saw not one match, nor heard one word, said about judo so that fact the people don't know it is, indeed, an Olympic "event," is not entirely unusual.

A few months before the games, I saw an interview on NBC with one of the "well, I have to be one of the favorites" judoka from the US, Jimmy Pedro. To give you an idea of how much judo is an unknown quantity in the Olympics, or even in everyday parlance, the interviewer asked Pedro, actually made a statement: "Judo is not exactly a household word." Funny, when I started, it was the only MA in the phone book when I was searching for a school of self-defense, at twelve, and then judo had its own listings in the yellow pages in LA.

While I may have been wrong about judo being a do or die event this year, it certainly did nothing to make itself better known, even though, as a sport, judo is the second most popular in the world, second only to soccer (football), although a distant second, and in the US, I doubt is anywhere near that.

I believe TKD started yesterday (monday, 26, September) and it will be interesting to see how it does. The judo venue has always had free admission at the Olympics (necessary to fill the VIP seats with judoka families), at least it was as recently as the Seoul Games in 1988. There will be two or three sessions per day of Tae Kwan do, and good seats for each day, and each session are eighty dollars (I saw this on the Oz TKD Association site, so I don't know if it was in American dollars).

This year's Games were said to be the least viewed of any Olympic television event, even with three NBC channels, but with the announcers knowing the results every time they said it was taped due to the 15 hour time difference, it looked that way on TV.

My point isn't that the judo venue was bad, but the entire Olympic tournament is sad (or bad, take your pick). The fact that Aussies saw one match means they got one-hundred percent more coverage than most in the US. Even in the 1972 games, I saw more than my dream of coverage in Mexico, many hours of it per day, and it was live. At the time, they were not so shameless as to "steal" satellite feeds.

Even with a good friend in the T and F venue, I did not see her finals until nearly forty-eight hours later, the 400 m won by Cathy Freeman. Thanks to Joe S. for the updates, as he was faster than Internet updates, and so I thank him for that.

If that isn't enough bad news, the games are not over, people.:D The gymnasts were again brought out to dance, and this time they didn't make any errors; no score, as this really was a dance.

Mark

BTW:Neil, you've never "taken" a soporific for the yawns and insomnia?
Aren't you supposed to be on vacation or something?:wave:

Joseph Svinth
27th September 2000, 10:12
Hey, I gotta say that CBC gave some decent live coverage of boxing and judo, especially when Canadians were involved.

So for those of you on NBC Live, the Germans came in 1-2 in road race cycling (240 km). Canada beat Oz in men's double tennis. Venus Williams won the medal in women's single tennis. Gail Devers DNF the 100 hurdles qual race, so Shishigina of Kazakhstan won at 12:65. (Mark, note that Alozi of Nigeria was second; she led up to the final hurdle and then Shigashina beat her over the line.) Everybody expected to make it to the women's 200 m finals did. Schumann of Germany won the men's 800; Kipketter of Denmark was 2nd.

If you get a chance to watch the USA boxing, do it; what I've seen was good stuff.

[Edited by Joseph Svinth on 09-27-2000 at 04:22 AM]

Bob Steinkraus
27th September 2000, 17:31
The guy across the aisle at work just told me A. Karelin just lost his first international match 1-0 to the American Gardner.

Unbelievable!

Neil Hawkins
27th September 2000, 23:37
Mark 34 hours to go and counting! :cool:

Last night our coverage had what was termed "Fight Night" which consisted of about 40 minutes of TKD and 15 minutes of wrestling. The funniest thing I have seen in a long, long time, was on though. A comedy duo that do the end-of-day wrap-up had edited some wrestling footage and set it to a Barry White song, obviously the thrust (pardon the pun!) of the piece was sexually suggestive, but I laughed and laughed, timing was everything and I take my hat off to the editor of this, the words and music fit the vision perfectly. ;)

There has already beed controversy in the TKD, but I'll post that down in Karate.

Neil

MarkF
28th September 2000, 10:07
Not only did Karelin lose for the first time since 1987, he was scored on for the first time since 1988, he lost the first international match ever, he gave up with eight seconds to go. Apparently, he doesn't feel like talking about it yet, Bob.:cry:

Mark

MarkF
28th September 2000, 10:14
Oh, Yes, BTW, Neil,
Today is fight day here in the already finished boxing matches, and are going to get "complete" coverage in the US, starting at 4:00pm MDT. Considering the Olympics is wearing thin on a lot of people, if they do show lots of boxing, they may get a gold star, or some Brownie points, as well.:)

For he who gets the live coverage of boxing on CBC, don't tell me the boxing results until I miss them tomorrow.:D

Mark