new IJF rules for sport judo matches from 2017

http://www.worldjudoday.com/en/2017-2020-New-refereeing-regulations-600.html


WIDE CONSENSUS FOR THE ADAPTED RULES OF THE NEXT OLYMPIC CYCLE
The International Judo Federation has worked on the new regulations and published them today. They will apply for the next Olympic cycle. The goal is to promote the rules of judo and make them easier to understand, as well as to simplify them. The purpose of these rules is to give priority to the attack and to the realization of IPPON. A final document will be prepared and send before the end of the year. A proposal to include a team event during the Olympic Games will also be sent to the IOC. This event will be a mixed team event including 3 women (-57, -70, +70) and 3 men (-73, -90, +90).



VERSION FRANCAISE







A test period at the international level will start at the beginning of January 2017 on the occasion of the first continental open of the year in Africa and will end after the World Championships in Budapest in August-September 2017.



The Tokyo Grand Slam 2016, marked the end of the Olympic cycle which saw the crowning of 14 new Olympic champions in Rio last August. A whole new cycle now opens (starting with the Paris Grand Slam in February 2017) which will end during the next Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. As was the case in 2012, following the London Games, the International Judo Federation has carefully analysed the last four years, both from an organisational perspective and from a technical point of view.



Within four years, judo has definitely evolved very positively. The success of the Rio 2016 Games is a tangible proof of this. Within a few years the technical abilities of the athletes has improved a lot and, for example, the number of ippons scored in competition has increased sharply, reaching more than 80% in certain weight categories on the occasion of the last World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, in August 2015.



This analysis, conducted under the supervision of the IJF Executive Committee and an expanded group of experts and media representatives around the judo movement, revealed a number of changes and improvements to the rules that will provide greater clarity and a greater dynamism to judo. The new rules were elaborated based on the proposals from National Federations and the 20 Directors of the IJF Coordination Committee, which were later analysed by the group of experts of the IJF and the Executive Committee technical departments. The choices that have been made are the result of a widely shared and democratic consensus. They take into account the fundamental values of judo, its moral code, while ensuring that our sport, which is a 'living body’, can adapt to the modern world and reach an increasingly large audience.



The rules that have been adopted will be presented at the refereeing and coaching seminar to be held in January in Baku, Azerbaijan. Judoka, coaches, fans and the media will be able to watch the Baku seminar live from 5 – 8 January on the IJF YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/judo



Each point of the new regulations will then be explained and detailed in a practical way to referees, coaches and representatives of national federations and continental unions. A test period will then be opened. During this time, the new regulations can be corrected if necessary. This process will allow our judo community to start the next Olympic qualification cycle with perfectly integrated rules. Following the World Championships, a meeting will take place that will validate the set of rules that will be used for the next Olympic qualification period.



Below is a summary of the new/revised rules:

• Duration of contest

- Men and women four (4) minutes. Respect for parity as wished by the IOC and fight time unity for the Olympic mixed team event. Only scores (technical scores) will decide a contest.



• Golden score

- In the case where there is no score(s), or scores are equal, the contest will continue in Golden Score.

- Any score and/or penalties from regular time will remain on the score board.

- The decision in the golden score is made by the difference of score or shido.



• Evaluation of the points

- There will now only be ippon and waza-ari.

- The value of waza-ari includes those given for yuko in the past.

- The waza-ari do not add up. Two waza-ari are no longer the equivalent of ippon

- Immobilisations (Osae Komi): Waza-ari 10 seconds, Ippon 20 seconds.



• Penalties

- There are now three shido, instead of previously four.

- The third shido becomes Hansoku Make.

- In order to simplify the refereeing and its understanding all the actions that have been punished in the past on how to grab the judogi (kumikata) will not more be penalized: pistol grip, 2 hands on the same side, fingers in the sleeve…

- Kumikata will not be penalized as long as Tori is preparing an attack, but negative position will be penalised.

- The time for taking a grip and making an attack is 45 seconds.

- In case of a defensive attitude, shido will be given.

- Leg grabbing or grabbing the trousers, shall be penalized first by shido and secondly by Hansoku Make.



• Safety

- The committee examined the rules with regard to safety to ensure that judo has as little trauma as possible. If Uke attempts to avoid landing on their back by any movement which is dangerous for the head, neck or spine, they shall be penalized with hansokumake. The competitor loses this contest, but can continue in the competition if applicable.

- Not to set a bad example for young judoka, false breakfalls won’t be considered as valid actions. Falling on two elbows, the action is counted. Falling on one elbow, the action is not counted.

- Anti judo is immediately penalized.



• Judogi

- For a better efficiency and to have a good grip it is necessary for the jacket to be well fitted in the belt, with the belt tied tightly. To reinforce that, the competitors shall arrange their Judogi and belt quickly between Matte and Hajime announced by the referee.



• World Ranking Points

- The points will be modified. Proposition will be made shortly.

- Juniors: the medallist of the Junior World Championships will get points in the Senior World Ranking List for this event only.









press@ijf.org



IJF - 1007 Lausanne, Switzerland

Avenue Frédéric-César-de La Harpe 49

I am curious to understand what this means:

Not to set a bad example for young judoka, false breakfalls won’t be considered as valid actions. Falling on two elbows, the action is counted. Falling on one elbow, the action is not counted.

cokiee wrote:I am curious to understand what this means:

Not to set a bad example for young judoka, false breakfalls won’t be considered as valid actions. Falling on two elbows, the action is counted. Falling on one elbow, the action is not counted.

Likewise.

I also see the 45 seconds to grip and attack rule as problematic to enforce. Particularly with the matches shortened to 4 minutes. Is there now four timers? One for the match, one for osaekomi and one each for each competitor that zeroes after each attack? Who determines if a valid attack has been made? Will the referee have to make some indication that there has been an attack?

I don't mind the principle but I see it as being rather complicated to enforce.

I like the relaxation of the leg "grab" rule. Unlcear if merely touching the leg (without gripping) still constitutes a penalty.

I also like the relaxation of gripping rules, but we'll have to see how that plays out.

I'm agnostic on the elimination of waza-ari. From the description, they have not really eliminated yuko, they have eliminated waza-ari and then renamed yuko as waza-ari. It would have been clearer if they'd just kept the yuko as-is and just said there is no more waza-ari. Calling the new yuko as waza-ari is just spin. It may work well, but I think it will penalise some nice waza by downgrading them to yuko. It may also create a situation that throws which would have been waza-ari before are now sometimes upgraded to ippon and sometimes downgraded to the equivalent of the old yuko, which will lead to more controversial calls in both directions.

Most importantly NONE of this is going to bring more spectators to judo. If all the rule fiddling over the past 25 years has taught us anything, it's that the way to grow the AUDIENCE for judo is to grow PARTICIPATION in judo. PERIOD. FULL-STOP. THAT'S IT.

If all the rule fiddling over the past 25 years has taught us anything, it's that the way to grow the AUDIENCE for judo is to grow PARTICIPATION in judo. PERIOD. FULL-STOP. THAT'S IT.

Much better and with less work: PAY the AUDIENCE and host the GRAND SLAM and GRAND PRIX in countries with LOW GDP and LOW INCOME and PATRIARCHIAL NON OR PSEUDO DEMOCRACIES and bring the HIGHLIGHTS as SUPERJUDO on your own VIDEO CHANNEL and some IMPRESSIVE data about Judo and internet tv (which only you have) on your web site.


The Truth = Judo Grand-Slam Abu Dhabi 2016: Day 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES1NLm4FRq4

Y-Chromosome wrote:
I'm agnostic on the elimination of waza-ari.  From the description, they have not really eliminated yuko, they have eliminated waza-ari and then renamed yuko as waza-ari.  It would have been clearer if they'd just kept the yuko as-is and just said there is no more waza-ari.  Calling the new yuko as waza-ari is just spin.  It may work well, but I think it will penalise some nice waza by downgrading them to yuko.  It may also create a situation that throws which would have been waza-ari before are now sometimes upgraded to ippon and sometimes downgraded to the equivalent of the old yuko, which will lead to more controversial calls in both directions.

For me, calling it waza-ari is apt given what the changes are. Now, there is either sufficient technique to warrant a score, or there is sufficient technique to win outright. Not sure if i'm reading too much into it, but it's also broadly congruent with the ideals of going for the ippon, since people no longer can execute two lesser throws to get to the finishing point. This means that the incentive to finish the bout early is going for a quality throw, which could lead to a big counter etc.

cokiee wrote:
For me, calling it waza-ari is apt given what the changes are. Now, there is either sufficient technique to warrant a score, or there is sufficient technique to win outright. Not sure if i'm reading too much into it, but it's also broadly congruent with the ideals of going for the ippon, since people no longer can execute two lesser throws to get to the finishing point. This means that the incentive to finish the bout early is going for a quality throw, which could lead to a big counter etc.

My point is, that in terms of the technique that will merit it, and the impact on the outcome of the match, the "new waza-ari" is much closer to the "old yuko" than the "old waza-ari".

Secondly in terms of influencing competitor's behaviour, while it may have been possible to argue that some competitors might have been "going for a koka" or even been "going for yuko" in the interest of gaining a marginal advantage in a close match, I don't think anyone in the history of Judo has intentionally attempted to score waza-ari. Waza-ari is awarded when the throw lacked "something" so as to merit ippon. Taking away waza-ari-awasete-ippon, is going to have ZERO impact on influencing the ferocity with which judoka pursue ippon. It will simply mean that some very fine throws will not be worth as much as they had previously and the match scoring will be marginally easier to understand for judo neophytes.

For years now the IJF has struggled with how to convince competitors to lose big and gloriously. I am not being facetious. They have always coached it in the language of encouraging competitors to "go for ippon", but in reality what they want is for every match to end with a spectacular ippon throw. That means that in every SINGLE match someone has LOST spectacularly. What coach want's their athlete to lose spectacularly? What athlete want's to lose spectacularly? The IJF is trying to arrive at rules that run counter to the very fundamental motivations of individual competitors and coaches. In every SINGLE match, someone is at a disadvantage. The IJF wants that person to gladly fly through the air so as to boost TV ratings and line the IJF's pockets, not the competitor's. It stinks frankly and that's why it's never really worked.
Is this the conversation that's happening? "Hey Bob, you'll probably never beat this Japanese/Frenchman/Georgian... but hey go out there and get thrown for the biggest ippon you can. It's what's best for judo."

From observing tournament big and small, it seems by taking away two wazari = ippon made a big difference. There were matches from every tournament I watched that had at least three wazaris (or real wazaris under the old rules), some had five! It's nice to aim for big throw and finish with ippon, but it is not always possible so that means newaza will be even more important now as the energy spent throwing four wazaris is going to be better spend finishing the match on the ground.

I am curious to know what the opinion of the new rules is, especailly from our European counterparts (had not been fully implemented in the US yet). I took my son to scholastic championships and it was interesting because the cadets division was run with 2017 rules (because was qualifier for cadet World Championships), but the other divisions were run using 2016 rules.

Watching the cadets, it seemed like a lot of matches ended with 2 or more wazari on same side. Also, it seemed like a lot more matches went to golden score. Out of 120 matches, probably 25 or more went to golden score. (I did not take note how many of those could have been decided if penalties could decide the result in real time (as old rule)). There were probably 8 or 10 matches that were pretty boring, heading into golden score with no scores at all and only penalties on the board. Would seem to me that they would want to limit those kind of matches.

On second day (cadets were all on day 1), I watched one mat (that my son was on) all day. The entire day, they had only 3 golden scores.

Any idea if they might make changes to this?

A friend went to a recent referee event at the Kodokan and said the general thought seemed to be that this rule will not have a large impact.

"- In order to simplify the refereeing and its understanding all the actions that have been punished in the past on how to grab the judogi (kumikata) will not more be penalized: pistol grip, 2 hands on the same side, fingers in the sleeve…"

I think it will. I bet that there are oaches and players around the world gaming this through, and we'll see the results changingthe game pretty quickly.