Sport week: Introduction to judo

The sport will make its eighth Paralympic appearance in 2016. 30 May 2016

Luis Perez Diaz of Puerto Rico, fighting against Robert Kim of USA in the men's -66kg judo at the Toronto 2015 Parapan American Games.

ⒸRafal Burza

By IPC

Paralympic judo follows the same rules as Olympic judo, with the difference that judokas shall start and remain during the combat holding each other’s suits.

Only athletes with visual impairment are eligible to compete, with all the sight classes (B1, B2 and B3) competing together and divided according to the judokas’ weight.

Combats last five minutes for men and four for women. The aim is to either gain more points than the rival by skillful attacks or score the “ippon” by throwing the opponent with their back on the ground, immobilising them or forcing a submission.

Judo made its Paralympic debut at Seoul 1988 and has been contested at every Games since. Women’s events were added at Athens 2004. The sport is the only martial art on the programme.

At the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games there will be seven different male weight divisions: -60kg, -66kg, -73kg, -81kg, -90kg, -100kg and +100kg; and six female weight divisions: -48kg, -52kg, 57kg, -63kg, -70kg and +70kg.

Athletes compete in a series of tournaments along the year, including World Cups and world and regional Championships.

Judo is governed by the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA).

Helpful links

IPC judo webpage

IBSA Judo website

Editor’s note: Each sport on the Rio 2016 Paralympic programme will have a dedicated week of featured content published on paralympic.org. Every week a new sport will be featured and the series will run until September’s Games, helping the public understand more about the 22 sports being contested in Rio.

Sport fans from around the world can now buy their Paralympic tickets for Rio 2016 from authorised ticket resellers (ATRs)

The IPC’s Global ATR is Jet Set Sports, and Rio 2016 tickets and packages can be purchased on the CoSport website.

Residents of Brazil can buy 2016 Paralympics tickets directly from the Rio 2016 website.