At the Dusseldorf Grand Prix press conference the following was recorded in InsideTheGames.biz news release:
"Juan Carlos Barcos, the IJF's head refereeing director, claimed that the newly adapted refereeing rules were already having a positive effect on the sport.
"Since the beginning of 2013, we already have records for 1,300 contests," he said. "The scoring level almost reaches 80 per cent, and the number of ippon has increased compared to last year.""
I am a little worried by this statement as it is not easy to determine exactly what is considered an ippon. In a recent post on a judo blog I added the following reply:
The first answer, by the blogger, is to an earlier answer by another to his initial post
March 1, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Do you know it is more positive judo? German research suggests the judo is more negative. The IJF stats of 77% ippons has now been clouded by the revelation they were counting direct Hansoku Make as ippon.
But it is not about the rules it is about the British implementation of them. Nine days is not long!
Reply
THIS IS MY ANSWER
"David Finch
March 2, 2013 at 12:22 pm
We need to see the precise statistics for all recent international competitions to determine exactly what constitutes an ippon. In Germany Peter Seisenbacher, the new coach to the Azebaijan team, said that 7 of his players received hansoku-makes in their first match at the Budapest Open 2 weeks ago. Did he mean first international match or first contest? I am not sure.
I have glanced at the PDF results and if you look at the Ippon.org site for that event you will see that disqualifications are recorded in two ways. As H for hansoku-make and s4 for 4 shidos and in each case the opponent is awarded an ippon. The statistics reveal that only 7 hansoku-makes were awarded while 779 shidos were awarded in in a total of 315 contests. Now, the shidos are not broken down as per player but per contest which means it is difficult to analyse quickly the full number of disqualifications from shidos as the results show 100 contests incurred between 4 and 7 shidos each. On the other hand the Statistics show that there were 195 ippons in the 315 contests equaling 62%.
Now go back to the Athens Olympics which I think was the catalyst for the need to increase ippons and you will find a very different story. Obviously the two events are far from strictly comparable. Budapest was men only and the repercharge started at the quarter-finals whereas Athens was men and women and a full repercharge. Briefly, from my records Athens totaled 523 contests with an average of 57.87% ippons across the 14 weight categories with the highest at 67.74% (+78kgs) and lowest at 42.42% (u52kgs). Now this is the important bit; there were no hansoku-makes and only 8 disqualifications from 4 shidos.
In the case of Budapest a quick count reveals there are 7 hansoku-makes AND 25 disqualifications from 4 shidos! If the disqualifications were counted as ippons then the true ippons would equal just 51.74% of the results. I am not a statistician but even if the Athens ippon winning contest total is adjusted to remove the 8 times 4 shido disqualifications we are actually going backwards. In my opinion the IJF refereeing commission needs to reconsider the direction it is traveling. Certainly 4 shidos and hansoku-make should not be counted as ippons the same as an uchi-mata throw or any other for that matter. Get that right and we might know how to truly improve ippon scoring techniques."
I must add that certain items in the rule changes are definitely positive but keeping 4 shidos as a positive ippon for the opponent does not seem right to me when 3 shidos are not recorded as a wazari for the opponent. Winning with positive scoring is a step forward but hansoku-make should be recorded as something else and not an ippon comparable to an uchi-mata or juji-gatame ippon. Your thoughts?
"Juan Carlos Barcos, the IJF's head refereeing director, claimed that the newly adapted refereeing rules were already having a positive effect on the sport.
"Since the beginning of 2013, we already have records for 1,300 contests," he said. "The scoring level almost reaches 80 per cent, and the number of ippon has increased compared to last year.""
I am a little worried by this statement as it is not easy to determine exactly what is considered an ippon. In a recent post on a judo blog I added the following reply:
The first answer, by the blogger, is to an earlier answer by another to his initial post
March 1, 2013 at 2:01 pm
Do you know it is more positive judo? German research suggests the judo is more negative. The IJF stats of 77% ippons has now been clouded by the revelation they were counting direct Hansoku Make as ippon.
But it is not about the rules it is about the British implementation of them. Nine days is not long!
Reply
THIS IS MY ANSWER
"David Finch
March 2, 2013 at 12:22 pm
We need to see the precise statistics for all recent international competitions to determine exactly what constitutes an ippon. In Germany Peter Seisenbacher, the new coach to the Azebaijan team, said that 7 of his players received hansoku-makes in their first match at the Budapest Open 2 weeks ago. Did he mean first international match or first contest? I am not sure.
I have glanced at the PDF results and if you look at the Ippon.org site for that event you will see that disqualifications are recorded in two ways. As H for hansoku-make and s4 for 4 shidos and in each case the opponent is awarded an ippon. The statistics reveal that only 7 hansoku-makes were awarded while 779 shidos were awarded in in a total of 315 contests. Now, the shidos are not broken down as per player but per contest which means it is difficult to analyse quickly the full number of disqualifications from shidos as the results show 100 contests incurred between 4 and 7 shidos each. On the other hand the Statistics show that there were 195 ippons in the 315 contests equaling 62%.
Now go back to the Athens Olympics which I think was the catalyst for the need to increase ippons and you will find a very different story. Obviously the two events are far from strictly comparable. Budapest was men only and the repercharge started at the quarter-finals whereas Athens was men and women and a full repercharge. Briefly, from my records Athens totaled 523 contests with an average of 57.87% ippons across the 14 weight categories with the highest at 67.74% (+78kgs) and lowest at 42.42% (u52kgs). Now this is the important bit; there were no hansoku-makes and only 8 disqualifications from 4 shidos.
In the case of Budapest a quick count reveals there are 7 hansoku-makes AND 25 disqualifications from 4 shidos! If the disqualifications were counted as ippons then the true ippons would equal just 51.74% of the results. I am not a statistician but even if the Athens ippon winning contest total is adjusted to remove the 8 times 4 shido disqualifications we are actually going backwards. In my opinion the IJF refereeing commission needs to reconsider the direction it is traveling. Certainly 4 shidos and hansoku-make should not be counted as ippons the same as an uchi-mata throw or any other for that matter. Get that right and we might know how to truly improve ippon scoring techniques."
I must add that certain items in the rule changes are definitely positive but keeping 4 shidos as a positive ippon for the opponent does not seem right to me when 3 shidos are not recorded as a wazari for the opponent. Winning with positive scoring is a step forward but hansoku-make should be recorded as something else and not an ippon comparable to an uchi-mata or juji-gatame ippon. Your thoughts?