Referee Supervisor Evgeny Rakhlin: prevent hansoku for your defense

Among the Referee Supervisors in Abu Dhabi is a new member of the team, Olympic referee Evgeny Rakhlin. He arrives in UAE with a huge amount of experience having spent his whole life in judo and makes a technical analysis to help athletes to manage not to use their head to defend their movement and prevent hansoku.

“The first point is that the refereeing was very consistent today. Video reviews were generally used only to check situations that had difficult angles or to confirm a hansoku-make decision.

Rakhlin: “The participants that using the head in defence is rewarded by hansoku-make and that offers them no possibility to continue in the fight. However, if they stop using their heads and manage to find their side, defending properly with their movement, perhaps with a careful ukemi, they can take a waza-ari against them and then continue to try to get the score back. We have to change the mentality throughout the competitive community to stay away from any action which can cause an impact with the head first, whether in attack or defence. This has been a focus for some time and very good, capable judoka are losing contests because they don’t consider this rule correctly. It is in place to protect our whole judo family from potential injury. Coaches must teach correctly and athletes must learn and apply correctly.”

“I like to see that many referees are making very good progress. There are only small details to correct at this level but we are seeing self assurance and independence that follows the right line, as well as the skill to officiate accurately according to the rules. For many parts of the day they haven’t needed supervisor support, they don’t even look towards the commission. This is how referees can be selected for the Olympic Games. We need those who can make decisions on the tatami right now, immediately when an action occurs. During referee training sessions the directors, who have all completed the IJF Academy courses and studied the rules continuously, we study previous events’ hansoku-make situations, all infringements and the various characteristics of ippon and waza-ari. Everyone is together and that helps this progression.”