olympics

Japan hoping to improve judo fortunes after disappointing start

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Get the news conference ready to explain why the JOC's claim to 15 'self-entitled' gold medals were not met while SK tops them in the rankings. Seriously, time to just support your athletes and hope they do their best, not make press conferences and promises you cannot possibly keep. Unlike doing rehearsal after rehearsal for a sports day at school where you ultimately know the outcome of the show put on for parents, you cannot predict how actual games will pan out.

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Next you will start hearing about how the foreign Judoka don't do 柔道, but Judo, meaning that the foreigners don't do Judo in the "traditional" Japanese style and because of it the Japanese competitors are at a disadvantage.

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Yubaru: "Next you will start hearing about how the foreign Judoka don't do 柔道, but Judo, meaning that the foreigners don't do Judo in the "traditional" Japanese style and because of it the Japanese competitors are at a disadvantage."

I think that's more or less the EXACT thing I said yesterday but I think my post was removed as 'off topic'. The intended point of my message is that Japan has no qualms and of course WANTS Judo and other sports it excels at to be part and parcel of the Olympics but when the world progresses they claim to be the victims. Same with Sumo (or Sumou). Sports change as time goes by, some rules for the worse, but most the better. If Japan gets gold there would be ZERO complaints, but when they don't after previously announcing it was in the bag it's because of the rest of the world, not the performance of the athlete in question.

It is what it is, for EVERYONE! Now let's hope they can all do their best and not gripe about the finer points being the loss, but themselves, if they lose, regardless of nationality.

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As I see it, it is the Olympics and everyone, no matter where they come from or what sport they participate in should be first, proud to represent their nation, and second, be given the same opportunities to excel and do their best.

I personally don't care WHO wins as long as they won fair and square.

The problem here in Japan is the media puts way too much pressure on the athlete's and if they lose, they look for excuses, if they win, it's because of everyone else around them and not the athlete themselves and their performance.

I also don't like the fact that in Judo if their "win" a gold medal they get ZERO compensation, but in swimming if Kitajima wins double gold he will get 660 million yen as an award. Only participants in Judo get nothing.

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Careless mistakes were made in the judo openers by Japanese competitors. They must concentrate more ... and try to make more throws, etc.

To change the subject to another sport, I haven't been able to see anything about the weightlifting competition. But after watching the opening event this morning, I was left with a bad feeling about the system they are now using. It seems that each lifter says how much he/she will be lifting, and that is what they aim for. The Chinese girl gave the highest figures, which put her in line for a gold medal right away. The Japanese girl's figures set her up for silver and the North Korean's figures put her in line for the bronze. The other competitors gave lower lifting numbers, so they were out of the running for a medal before they even started. If this is the system, why even bother lifting if you know you won't get a medal? The old weightlifting system used to have the weightage added after each lift, with all lifters given a shot at winning. Thus I think the new system stinks. Morever, the Japanese girl lifted more than the Chinese girl, yet the Chinese won because the difference was less than one kilogram. Which ... makes the new system stink even more.

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Morever, the Japanese girl lifted more than the Chinese girl, yet the Chinese won because the difference was less than one kilogram.

I think you have your information wrong, according to the "official" results the Chinese lifter totaled 205 KG. 91 KG in the snatch and 114 in the clean and jerk, 1st place in both categories. Miyake totaled 197 KG . 87 in the snatch and 110 in the clean and jerk, she was 2nd overall but placed third in weight in the clean and jerk.

http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/results/_/sport/48

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Yubaru: "The problem here in Japan is the media puts way too much pressure on the athlete's and if they lose, they look for excuses, if they win, it's because of everyone else around them and not the athlete themselves and their performance."

Once again, agreed 100%. I can still remember the MONTHS of showing Fukuhara Ai as a 4-year old starting table tennis before stating she would get the gold medal, making her the flag-bearer for the nation, and her eventual meltdown (saa!). She hasn't done well since, and I think it's because of media pressure, and I remember banners at sports stores with her picture on it being taken down after her losses.

edojin: "The Chinese girl gave the highest figures, which put her in line for a gold medal right away. The Japanese girl's figures set her up for silver and the North Korean's figures put her in line for the bronze. The other competitors gave lower lifting numbers, so they were out of the running for a medal before they even started."

So it was all a set-up for the Chinese woman to win in Great Britain. Could you possibly have fallen any worse into the stated fact that when Japan doesn't do as expected they make excuses and claim to be victims? ALL athletes were subject to the same thing. China did better than Japan. Deal with it. At least Japan got a silver, which is nothing to shy at.

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At least Japan got a silver, which is nothing to shy at.

Sorry, I know what you meant to say and it may be semantics but Miyake got the silver medal. She won it. Japan is second on the list as I see it.

Miyake's father and uncle were Olympic weightlifters as well and her father/coach got a bronze way back when. I agree it's nothing to shy at, at all! She should be very proud of her accomplishment.

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edojin:

Morever, the Japanese girl lifted more than the Chinese girl, yet the Chinese won because the difference was less than one kilogram.

!!!!!!!!!

The total difference between Wang and Miyake was 8kg (for your information, with Wang lifting more!)

All credit to Miyake as she seemed to have lifted very smoothly and guess what...... she seemed really happy with her result. Well done to them all - they're all so small and yet they lifted more than me in weight! If you have a problem, direct it to the people who make the rules, instead of bitching about the athletes.

Smith:

So it was all a set-up for the Chinese woman to win in Great Britain.

I don't know what it is with East Asians - they get paranoid so much. When Park was initially disqualified in the 400m freestyle, the Korean media accused a Chinese judge of sabotage so that China's Sun Yang could win. Turns out the judge in question was Japanese, Park was reinstated, Sun went on to win, not only by a large margin, but came close to the record (without magic suit assist), and the rest is history.

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Next you will start hearing about how the foreign Judoka don't do 柔道, but Judo, meaning that the foreigners don't do Judo in the "traditional" Japanese style and because of it the Japanese competitors are at a disadvantage.

YOu should have been in one of my classes last week when some of my students said this exact thing. I said well fine then, don't cry about baseball, soccer and other sports not from Japan when I tell you the Japanese don't play the "traditional" way. Cue "But we play YAKYU not baseball". Yep, go to see nationalism in 18 year olds.

And I think we ALL agree there is too much pressure put on folks here with sports. How many athletes have been built up and ripped to shreds when they fail to deliver the goods? The poor female figure skaters get it every day winter!

And what a negative headline.

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Saaa - I just spit out my coffee at that comment!!

Let's not forget Sawa and her "illness" she's just come back from.

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Yubaru: "Sorry, I know what you meant to say and it may be semantics but Miyake got the silver medal. She won it. Japan is second on the list as I see it."

Isn't that what I said? The latter part of my comment was made for edojin, who was making excuses for the weightlifting result. I was saying Japan should be proud of the silver they got in weightlifting as opposed to getting squat, like other nations have (aside from gold and bronze, of course).

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smithinjapan - "Get the news conference ready to explain why the JOC's claim to 15 'self-entitled' gold medals were not met while SK tops them in the rankings. "

Here you go again with your warped 'self-entitled' arguments. Nobody in the JOC said anything about the team being entitled to 15 gold medals. If you can show me one quote where somebody says Japan is entitled to 15 gold medals, I will promise to eat crow. A previous article on Japan Today (which you commented on) stated that Korea has set a target of 10 golds and a top 10 finish. Japan is by no means the only country that does this. I don't remember what the total was, but the Canadian Olympic committee has done the same.

"Once again, agreed 100%. I can still remember the MONTHS of showing Fukuhara Ai as a 4-year old starting table tennis before stating she would get the gold medal, making her the flag-bearer for the nation, and her eventual meltdown (saa!). She hasn't done well since, and I think it's because of media pressure, and I remember banners at sports stores with her picture on it being taken down after her losses."

They never stated that Ai was going to win the gold. I don't even think her world ranking was realistically high enough to make that claim. But the reason she was the flag-bearer was because she plays professionally in China, is fluent in Mandarin, is well-liked in China and was the perfect ambassador for the occasion. Again, please show me a quote somewhere that claimed she would win gold.

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edojin - Weightlifting works like events like the high jump and the pole vault. You have a certain number of tries allowed, and it is up to the competitor to decide how much they want to lift. You can obviously wait until the end and try to out-lift everybody, but there's the risk that if you can't lift it, you end up with a score of zero. Long story short, the Chinese competitor was head and shoulders above everybody else, and she felt that the weights that the other competitors were trying to lift were way too light for her to waste her energy on.

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Hey everyone! If you are going to persist calling women athletes "girls", please call all the men "boys". Otherwise, it is gals and guys, men and women.

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kreza:

A previous article on Japan Today (which you commented on) stated that Korea has set a target of 10 golds and a top 10 finish. Japan is by no means the only country that does this.

I don't recall that article, but if it's true, then I see nothing wrong with what Korea has set as a target. Why? Well, let's have a look at what they got in the 2008 Olympics:

Medals: 13 G, 10 S, 8 B, giving a total count of 31 medals. They came in ranked 7 (whether you count it the American way, or the rest of the world/official IOC way).

So, in effect, they're not even hoping to do better than last time, even though I don't think Korea's standards are slipping. However, haven't the Japanese authorities predicted the number of golds to match their best ever, which was 16 and that occurred in 1964 and 2004. Since then, they managed 9 golds in 2008. I don't know whether they can do it or not, but what I'd like to know is how they came up with a number as high as 16. The Koreans are certainly a bit more modest.

I'll give Japan this - they've got far more medals than the host country (for now).

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Pukey - I completely agree with you, I see absolutely nothing wrong with setting goals, and I think Korea has every right to hope for the 10 golds that they've wished for, and I hope they get even more than that!

I also agree that Japan has set their goals a little too high, because there are always going to be those that choke under the enormous pressure of the Olympic games. I'm not sure how exactly they came up with the number of 15 golds, but I'm pretty sure they looked at the world champions on the Japanese Olympic team and other athletes with a top 3 world ranking and used that as their base. But I don't think it's fair to bash the JOC for setting goals, when so many other countries do the same.

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