Judo Techniques at Italian National Junior Championships 2010

On Saturday 13th March at the Palagolfo of Follonica (Grossetto) the Italian National Junior Championships (17,18, 19 years) took place for the males (259 athletes qualified) and on Sunday 14th for the females (144 qualified).Besides the qualified athletes there were another 32 athletes, who were invited as being athletes of National inteterest. The weight divisions on Saturday were divided into two groups, the 66kg and 73kg competing in the morning and the 55kg, 60kg, 81kg, 90kg, 100kg and over 100kg in the second half of the day.

I took one of my students, Leonardo Gava (ASD Judo Club Conegliano), to participate in the over 100kg weight division. There were 12 athletes coming from 10 different regions and only Campania and Lazio had two athletes, that entered this final. After the weigh-in was closed, I noticed a great difference in the weights, which ranged from 104kg to 148kg, ie. a difference of 44kg between the lightest and the heaviest. It is true, that in judo we often say, that weight does not make a difference, but considering the age group we are talking about 17-19 years, ie. teenagers, that are still growing, we should pay more attention and not have these big differences. Furthermore we have to consider, that who is in his first Junior year often is still 16 depending on the birthdate and might face somebody already 19 in January, so there is not only a big weight difference, but also a big age difference. About ten years ago, there was another age group between the cadets and the juniors, which went from 17 to 18 years, called “Speranze”, ie. “Hopes”, which was better proportioned to the age development.

In the sixties in Italy there used to be a National Championship without weight divisions. Today it would be difficult to propose such an open, however then the black belt was the same for everybody no matter how much somebody weighed. The light weights, which then started from 68kg, studied judo techniques, strategies and tactics in order to beat the heavy weights and these had to study judo techniques in order to speed up so that they could apply them on the light ones. Today with the 8 exisiting weight divisions for the Juniors from 55kg until over 100kg, the light weights do not meet with heavy weights and vice versa. Therefore the black belt is limited to the weight division and the technical knowledge is not as wide anymore as it used to be in the past.

Coming back to the over 100kg division in this championship, the heaviest athletes tended to “attach” their opponents to their bodies trying to take them to the ground with their body weight with the intention to score, in other words they really tried to take advantage of their weight and not of their better judo techniques. Nevertheless there was one athlete, which was the lightest, who had some oustanding technical judo skills, a good body preparation, great speed and was able to conquer the bronze medal by wining against opponents a lot heavier than he was.

In some nations, like in Japan, there still is an Open Championship without weight divisions.

For more on this visit weight in judo one of the most hot topics.