Zabgreb GP Day 1 - Israel's strong showing, American Hardware, IJF's improved experience

3 Mats, 3 Israelis competing

I captured an interesting moment earlier today during the Zagreb Grand Prix. As I watching the matches streamed on YouTube, There were 3 Israeli women competing simultaneously - poor Shani Hershko (the Israeli women's national coach). The commentators on the broadcast also spoke a bit about the rise of the Israeli Judo team of late, especially the Women. Unfortunately, the Israeli Women's team today didn't perform as well as we would hope - they finished just off of the medal round with two 7th place finishes, and a 5th (with a further two women being knocked out early). The men's team finished a bit better with Tal Flicker and Baruch Shmailov taking Gold and Bronze, respectively, in the Men's -66kg.

Overall, Israel has been progressively improving it's Judo, and unlike in the past where they may have had one or two competitors who had a chance at World or Olympic hardware (think Oren Smada, Yael Arad, Arik Ze'evi), they now have a handful of people who have a shot at a medal. Currently 6 Israelis rank in the top 10 of the world ranking and another 6 in the top 20 in their respective weight classes. Although the team suffered a loss when Yarden Gerbi retired, there are many more young women coming up through the ranks, eager to hear Hatikva from the podium.

In other Zagreb news, two Americans hit the podium - Angelica Delgado took home a bronze medal and Adonis Diaz took home the silver.

Finally, since I haven't posted about international competition in a while, I thought I'd take the opportunity to say how Much I am liking the new IJF Web/Video experience. Not only can you chose the mat to watch, but you can also see upcoming matches and the bracket as well. While the timing feature for matches isn't perfect (the occasional Ippon 10 seconds in throws it off), it's still pretty good. I also like that they link video of each match to the results, so I can search for a player and watch each of their individual fights. It makes following these international GP/GS tourneys a lot easier.

I also like the commentating. I don't know who's reading this blog, but if you work for the IJF, and can hook me up as a commentator - feel free to reach out :)

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Goodbye 2018, Hello 2019

Well folks, this has been a crazy year in Judo. A year that saw siblings win gold medals at a world tour event. A year that saw returning favorites and rising upstarts and dozens of awesome ippons.

It was a year of peace and friendship in Judo - If I told you 12 months ago that we'd see the Israeli flag hoisted in Abu Dhabi while their national anthem played in the backgroumd, or that a unified Korean team would compete at the World Championships in Baku - you would've thought highly unlikely that either one of those would come true, yet alone both.

It was also a great Judo year for me personally. After a few years of spotty practice due to various life events, I've finally got back to practicing regularly. I've also got back to blogging regularly (well, semi-regularly). I am always amazed that people are reading my blog, and I just want you to know that I appreciate it.

Happy Holidays and Best wishes for a great 2019.

For your viewing pleasure - below is a video the …

Tel-Aviv GP 2019 - Day 2 (We'll take one of each)

There was no less excitement on Day 2 of the Tel-Aviv GP. After a disappointing hardware-less day for the Israeli men's team on Thursday, they wanted so desperately to get off of the schneid, and the hometown fans would not be disappointed.

Israel took home 3 medals on Friday - Bronze in the men's -73, Silver in the Women's -63, and Gold in the Men's -81.

In the -73 category, Tohar Butbul took a tour of North America - beating the Candian Bouchard and the American Turner by Ippon - Bouchard with Osoto Gari 3 minutes in, and Turner on a Wazari from a Seoinage 23 seconds into Golden Score. He was cruising in the quarter finals, up by a Wazari with the seconds ticking away - but was thrown by Tajikistan's Khojazoda literally as time ran out - forcing him into the repechage. He ultimately won the Bronze by beating Nils Stump of Switzerland

In the -63 category, Inbal Shemesh, despite being the World #37, fought some good battles and came away with the Silver, ultimately…

Change of Scenery, Same Good Luck

Even with the current state where I can watch literally all of the Judo World Tour Events live on-line, actually watching them can still be a challenge - primarily because of the timing. Most of the events occur in Asia and Europe, so they're actually happening overnight here in the US.

Generally speaking, at least for the European Events, I can catch some matches in the morning while getting ready. I manage to catch this match above - Canada's Christa DeGuchi vs. reiging Olympic Champ Rafaela Silva of Brazil. While Silva ultimately wins the Match, I love DeGuchi's attack style and energy. She brings the fight to Silva and has her fighting defensively most of the match. Fighting Silva is not new to DeGuchi as she defeated the -57kg favorite back at the 2013 Tokyo GS to win the Bronze Medal. But then DeGuchi did something interesting - she switched countries - from Japan to Canada. (Her father is Canadian and her mother is Japanese). Doing so meant having to sit out of Wo…

The Road to Shodan

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