Judo Grand Slam in Tokyo ready for Japanese top performances

Over the next weekend, the IJF World Judo Tour will land in Tokyo, Japan. And the month of December is not yet over with the first World Judo Masters in Israel, to be held in Jerusalem.

An event where many points are at stake, important for the qualification for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. 

This week the Grand Slam in Tokyo will be the heart of judo with appealing names in the roster for the last Grand Slam of the year, the ninth Grand Slam of the year, one more than in 2021 where the Grand Slam in Tokyo was cancelled and on 2020 only three Grand Slam were organized due to the pandemic. Since February the Tour has had nine Grand Slam, of which six were held at European soil and Tokyo is the third Asian city after Ulaanbaatar and Abu Dhabi.

Jigoro Kano tournament

The traditional Jigoro Kano Cup was held since the seventies and hosted many of the world’s best athletes in history. This edition will be interesting for online sports betting on these sporting genres as the event will host some of the top athletes. This time also with a lot of top Japanese women. Since 2007 the event was also held for women that had a tradition at the Fukuoka women’s tournament. The Grand Slam in Tokyo was the first ever World Judo Tour event in 2008, since then the World Ranking was organized, since then the World Tour had more than 170 events, more than half of the events were at Grand Prix level, but since the Pandemic IJF gave much more space to the top event, the Grand Slam. 

Takato topscorer

It is a long time ago since the Japanese capital organised the Grand Slam, it was in 2017 as in 2018 and 2019 Osaka was the host for the Japanese Grand Slam. The man who won most Grand Slam at home is Naohisa Takato who captured five titles since 2012, but this time he will miss the 2022 edition as he is not yet ready to fight at this level. That might jeopardise his participation at the World Championships next year to be held in Doha (QAT) as the Grand Slam is a qualification event. Likely Takato will show his best at the Japanese Championships in April.

Another man with a history at the Japanese Grand Slam is Olympic Champion Takanori Nagase who won four times, just as much as Hifumi Abe. Abe won’t compete for the same reasons as Takato, Nagase may will try to equal Takato as best ever performer at the Grand Slam. Kaori Matsumoto and Ami Kondo won the event four times as well but have retired.

Shohei Ono’s performance

Were you would think Shohei Ono would be the man with perhaps most titles or medals in Tokyo, you would be surprised. He took the title in 2012 and 2018 and silver in 2014, but that’s it. Also this time Ono won’t be present as he isn’t ready for Tokyo yet.

Three female Japanese Olympic Champions will appear at the Grand Slam with Uta Abe of course, Akira Sone and Shori Hamada in the team roster. The Japanese team consists of 28 men and 28 women in a full house at the Budokan, the home of Judo.

In the beginning of next year the first stop will be in Portugal at the end of January, before the world of judo will spread out its wings in Europe’s judo capital Paris for the Grand Slam in early February where in 2024 the Olympic Games will open the doors for the approx. 400 qualified athletes.

The new cycle of Olympic qualification will lead to the Paris Games in 2024. Since the start of the qualification this year each competition of the World Judo Tour can be decisive in determining the list of participants in Paris. It’s time for Tokyo.