Phl judo needs lift to get off the mat

GUANGZHOU – The national judo association is losing its grip on the sport, pinned to the ground by the lack of support it needs to develop a mass base, train national athletes and make them win again in international competitions.

If one gets to chance to visit the judo association’s training facility at the Rizal Memorial Sports Complex, he will find only five or six judokas training, unlike in the nearby taekwondo training center where hundreds are cramped on the space three-fourth the size of a basketball court and hundreds more are waiting for their turn outside.

During the Philippine Open last year, a requisite imposed by the Philippine Sports Commission to determine the members of the national judo team, less than 10 attended.

One judoka in the lower category had to fight a player in the higher category for lack of an opponent and eventually lost the trip to the Laos Southeast Asian Games.

For the Asian Games, the judo association had to rely on old hands – 46-year-old John Baylon and veterans, Karen Ann Solomon, Ruth Dugaduga and Nancy Quillotes – who were chosen because of their performance in past Southeast Asian Games.

Baylon is not retiring and had indicated an interest to qualify for the Olympics in London. Head and body injuries, sprains and bone dislocations, and shoulder injuries are common among judokas. The risk is bigger as one takes the sport more seriously.

Who will eventually replace these few members of the “national pool?” Dave Carter, president of the judo association, shares the frustration of his staff and others he has tasked to promote the sport on the grassroots level through his regional presidents.

“The problem is we don’t have the funding to keep this program off the ground,” Carter said.

He bewails a Philippine Olympic Committee-PSC policy giving only incentives to those who win medals in the SEA Games, Asian Games and the Olympics.

“They should not just give money after the event, but before it. They must help us produce winners first,” said Carter.

Judo, like taekwondo, has an appeal only to students of exclusive schools because of the high cost of uniforms and training and, eventually, the cost of rehab.

Some take up the sport as a requisite of physical education but eventually drop out for the same reasons.

That problem is more pronounced in the provinces where there is no popular interest among students because clubs eventually lose their trainees because of the lack of competitions to encourage them to improve.

Taekwondo has gained huge strides in development because of sponsorships, which enable it conduct the now popular age group competitions which climax in the national open and taekwondo Best of the Best tournament.

This gives the taekwondo association a wide base of practitioners, assuring it of a big reservoir of talents it can tap for the major international competitions.

The program has sent taekwondo jins as far as the Olympics through Tshomlee Go and Antonette Rivero, and many are waiting in the wings.

The Filipino judokas that competed in the Asian Games have not advanced to the medal round and it shouldn’t be a surprise.

The veterans are all above 30 and have had injuries one way or another before that age, while two who are 23 and below, are too raw to fight the stronger opponents from Japan, Korea, Uzbekistan, China and even Central Asia countries.

Twenty-three-year-old Fil-Japanese Tomohiko Hoshina, competing in the +100kg and open category, succumbed to the sheer power (ippon) of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan right in the first round.

His young Fil-Japanese partner, Kenji Yahata, 16, showed promise of improvement because he is a serious practitioner who has, like Hoshina, the privilege of training in Japan.

He lost to Iranian Javad Mahjoub also in the first round.

The judo association is still looking for young judokas who will eventually take over from Baylon, winner of eight consecutive SEA Games gold medals but has yet to win one in the Asian Games.

Brushing off ankle and shoulder injuries he suffered in many judo battles, Baylon fought again in Guangzhou in hopes of finally pinning down the gold but lost as early as the first round to powerful Kim Jae Bun of Korea also by superiority.

Nancy Quillotes lost on points to Indian Devi Tombi.

Karen Ann Solomon snatched a win from Lebanese Louize Bourachad and advanced to the quarterfinal.

She lost to eventual gold medalist Hwang Ye Sui of Korea and, unlike other martial arts, she had the chance to win a bronze through the repechage where she lost to Tsend Ayush of Mongolia.

The same fate befell Dugaduga, who lost to Yang Xiuli of China and lost again in the repechage, to Dinara Kakharvoa of Kygyztan.

Japan ruled the competition with a tally of 7-4-8 gold-silver bronze medals, followed by Korea 6-3-5, Uzbekistan 1-4-3, Mongolia 0-1-5, China 0-1-4 and Iran 0-1-3.