Uzbekistan Grand Prix is the benchmark for IBSA Sports Director Tardos

Since a few years, Uzbekistan has been investing in IBSA judo. As a result, they topped the Medal Podium at the last Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The last two days they proved that it didn’t stop there. The Uzbek team won four of the thirteen categories and topped the Medal Podium once more.

Next to the Uzbek team being in great shape, we saw seven other nations winning a gold medal. It shows that many countries are working on an IBSA judo programme. We spoke to IBSA Sports Director Janos Tardos about these developments. “You can tell that the level of judo is increasing all the time. Let me give you a clear example of that: In the past you could see many situations where one judoka attacked and there was either a score or a mate. Now you can see many combinations and counter attacks. It makes it more exciting, much more exciting to watch and you could tell here in Tashkent that the crowd was appreciating that.”

Tardos continues: “I am proud that the collaboration between IBSA and IJF is becoming stronger. It is not a coincidence that the two grand prix this year are combined with the IJF World Judo Tour. The IBSA staff is quite small and thanks to the collaboration we have a lot more recourses. Another benefit is that the staff of the local federation already knows what to do. At previous tournaments, we sometimes had to work with staff that was untrained for the event. Now, the staff already had the experience of the IJF Grand Prix.”

IBSA refereeing director Angelika Wilhelm agrees with Janos and is pleased with the Tashkent Grand Prix: “I am very satisfied about this tournament. The level of judo has been very good here. The IJF staff helped us enormously with the organization and you can see that the athletes benefit from that. To add to that, the local organizing committee here has been amazing and I think everything together made it a great tournament.”