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Date: March 17, 2025
Category: Judo
The IBSA Judo World Cup in Tbilisi, starting on March 24, 2025, marks the beginning of a new four-year Paralympic cycle following the Paris Paralympics. We face new and growing challenges, but with a strong and evolving IBSA judo family, we have no reason to fear.
The IPC has approved para judo to remain part of the Paralympic movement, ensuring that Los Angeles will host 16 medal events, consistent with Paris. As usual, changes are expected following each Paralympic cycle, influenced by IPC decisions, IBSA judo committee proposals, and the sport’s development overseen by the IJF.
What are the key changes?
I would like to provide a brief overview of the key strategic goals for the next four years.
The development of these goals is the result of ongoing work. At the coaches’ meetings before competitions, there is always an opportunity to exchange ideas. In addition, we have created a questionnaire to understand the most important thoughts of the judo community. The responses largely align with the vision of the judo leadership.
What are the key objectives?
We aim to further increase the number of participating countries and athletes. There is still untapped potential. While the IJF has over 200 member countries, IBSA Judo currently has only 65.
We want to place a special focus on Africa, Pan-America, the youth age group, and increasing the number of female competitors. However, it is important to emphasize that integrating new countries and discovering new athletes is primarily the responsibility of IBSA member nations.
I would also like to highlight that we must already consider the 2032 Paralympics. We aim to increase the number of para judo medal events, at the very least by introducing new lower weight categories. To achieve this, we must prove the viability of these weight categories during the current four-year cycle.
The IBSA Judo leadership can provide professional and organizational support to assist the efforts of member countries.
We also consider the professional development of judo participants to be important.
We find the training of referees to be adequate. In collaboration with the IJF Referee Commission, we select the best referees and provide them with training on the different rules applied in IBSA Judo.
I would like to focus on two professional areas. First, the professional training of athletes is crucial. This consists of two key aspects: international training camps and adapting the belt examination system for visually impaired athletes. The second area is the education and further training of coaches. In this regard, we primarily rely on the IJF Academy’s 10 years of experience while jointly developing a special module for coaches of blind and visually impaired athletes.
The fight against doping and a modern, fair eye classification system are of paramount importance in both general and visually impaired sports. The judo leadership firmly stands for clean sport. We are preparing proposals to improve the eye classification system.
Hopefully, an agreement between the IJF and IBSA will soon be signed. This will provide new momentum for the further complex development of judo and will also come with increased financial support.
The most important task of IBSA Judo leadership is the professional management and development of judo. This relies on IBSA’s strategic and operational leadership, IJF’s professional support, and the services of the countries organizing the events.
The IBSA Judo Committee is gradually expanding in parallel with the increasing tasks. The election of athlete representatives will also take place soon.
I wish all members of the judo family much success. Thank you to all the supporters for their help.
János Tardos
IBSA Judo Chair
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