Jean de Herdt article

The legendary Jean de Herdt died earlier this year. Neither the IJF nor the EJU devoted any attention to it. Despite this, de Herdt was the first European judo champion, a 4-time European champion actually. He is considered as one of Kawaishi's first judo student (according to certain sources, #21), and started judo the same year as Fukuda Keiko (1935). As so many, de Herdt became the victim of judo politics. Rather than recognizing the Kôdôkan's superiority in jûdô in 1951 facing Daigo, after a 22 minute fight, the score was match-nul. De Herdt reflects briefly reflects on the fight in this article telling that Daigo, despite being in his prime, was completely gassed at that point, and that de Herdt could have beaten him but didn't out of respect, telling that simply wasn't done. Nevertheless, not losing from Daigo and showing that competition-wise he was at least his equal, cost him his head and probably the end of his career. The article is in French:

http://www.lyonne.fr/yonne/actualite/pays/puisaye/2012/03/14/jean-de-herdt-88-ans-une-legende-du-judo-1117812.html

Jan de Herdt was a formidable competitor. I'd like to ask Daigo about the contest, but it would be difficult, no?

As I wrote on the old forum, de Herdt was beaten in a France-GB contest (maybe two or three years earlier) by one Ted Mossom, who was 5'6" and walked with a limp due to a childhood bout of polio.

Tsurumaki wrote:Jan de Herdt was a formidable competitor. I'd like to ask Daigo about the contest, but it would be difficult, no?

As I wrote on the old forum, de Herdt was beaten in a France-GB contest (maybe two or three years earlier) by one Ted Mossom, who was 5'6" and walked with a limp due to a childhood bout of polio.

I've been wanting to ask Daigo too, and I would. I don't think one has to be reluctant to do so. But ... you know as well as I that you will get a different version. Similarly, I talked to Ôsawa about his legendary contest to Hirano and to Kimura. It's this contest that made Hirano leave Japan, and according to Hirano that contest was completely rigged. Hirano said that Mifune sold the contest, and that after 2 extensions Mifune incorrectly gave the victory to Ôsawa who too was Kôdôkan and Waseda, while Hirano was Ushijima and Takushoku. As you can imagine, in Ôsawa's version there was not a word about him inappropriately getting the victory thanks to Mifune's help. Instead he mostly emphasized Hirano's jealousy and anger after the contest. With regard to Kimura, Ôsawa emphasized Kimura's apparently incredible physical strength and that he was thrown by Kimura less frequently than he had expected. So, at the end of the day I guess we will never know for sure unless footage exists of those contests, and that footage is in real time, not edited, or at least knowledgeable third-party witnesses exist who are not connected to either camp and sufficiently objective. By the way, Hirano wiped the mat with both de Herdt and Pariset when he first visited Paris, and as could be expected, neither de Herdt nor Pariset would typically mention that anywhere in their interviews ... Hirano also beat Daigo when the latter was in his prime and All Japan Champion though Hirano was already past his prime at that point. Humans are humans, and the legend of time does the rest, I guess.

More details about the Mossom-de Herdt contest. According to Tony Sweeney, it was a best of three contest, and Mossom twice threw de Herdt with his ashi/o-guruma. Mossom was, by all accounts, a serious pub brawler. GK had him banned from the Budokwai, but not for brawling.

I have some films of Mossom doing general goshinjutsu (self defence) with GK.