I was approached by a good friend to try and help raise some money for the young fighters at Camberley. This has had me looking at all sorts of fund raising ideas, business sponsorship etc. over the weekend I have looked at a number of Judo web sites from various countries and I cam across www.judoinside.com which is a great site carrying some amazing statistics. The guys that run it Hans Osinga and Hans Van Essen always need accurate results and player profile information so any old boys and girls out there that have any old competition sheets or medal results from any international tournaments I am suer they would be really pleased to receive them.
Whilst looking at the site I found myself remembering some outstanding fighters, tournaments and great friends.
I came across another fabulous site that had aggregated a number of Judo video's on Youtube the site is called www.judovision.org where you can search by tournament, player, year etc.
There were some links to videos where I came across some great contests with players I hadn't watched for years. I had forgotten how good Thiery Rey (FRA) actually was, Kashiwazaki (JPN), Soloduchin (USSR), Hosokawa (JPN), Nishida (JPN) amongst many are all fighters any current young player should watch.
I watched a video of David Bodaveli (GEO) who had to be the strongest Judo player I have ever seen (there were other contenders - Nowak (FRA), Berthet (FRA), Nastula (POL), Van de Walle (BEL) but nothing compared to Bodaveli.
This got me thinking about what was the best fight I ever saw, best throw, best tournament etc. So it would be interesting to get other opinions. This could be done by decade. The best throw I ever saw was in the World Championships (ESP) I fought a Japanese fighter called Sakahita in the semi final and lost on a Koka (I was lucky enough to then win the bronze) however the Japanese fighter fought Kosmynin (USSR) in the final. Kosmynin went on to win many major tournament medals. The Japanese fighter pulled off the greatest Osoto Gari in history - if anyone has the video of this share it on youtube for the rest of the world to see. Podubni (USSR) was a great fighter I recall he used to run out of steam after three minutes but for three minutes he was amazing. So you get the point best throw, best tournament, best fighter let me know your thoughts.
Visit http://paulsheals.blogspot.com or leave a post here with your ideas.
