Introduction
Judo is a high-intensity,
intermittent combat sport in which many physical characteristics are
required to achieve optimal technical-tactical development and
competitive success (Bohannon, 2012; Franchini, Artioli, et al., 2013).
In official judo competitions, athletes are classified according to sex
(male and female), age (U13, U15, U18, U21 and senior) and weight
categories. During competitive combats, athletes seek to establish an
advantage based on different valid scores (e.g. ippon or wazari) or to
induce penalties in opponents (e.g. shido), for this judo athletes use
different approaches related to technical-tactical strategies in
official competition, involving technical variability (Kons, Agostinho,
Santos, et al., 2022; Franchini et al., 2008), groundwork transition
strategies (Nagai et al., 2018; Dopico-Calvo et al., 2022) and attack
side and direction (Camargo et al., 2019) as an example.
The proportion and variety of techniques used in a judo competition may
vary depending on sex, weight categories and competition outcome (Kons,
Agostinho, Lopes-Silva, et al., 2022). However, it is important to
highlight the successive rule changes that occurred in judo (Franchini,
Takito et al., 2013; Samuel et al., 2019) specially in the 2015 and 2018
Judo World Championships (Calmet et al., 2017a, 2017b). In the
perceptions of athletes and coaches, these successive rule changes have
been negatively identified in the motivation parameters (e.g.
participants perceived this change event more negatively with little
time to adapt for the official competitions) (Samuel et al., 2019).
Considering the investigations related to the effect of this changes in
the match-related variables performance, it was verify that while male
judo athletes scored slightly increased female judo athletes scored
higher (Doppelhammer & Stöckl, 2020). Between the rule changes in 2012
and 2013 European Judo Championships, while the scoring of male and
female judokas increased at a similar rate, only male’s hansoku-make and
ippon scores increased significantly (Franchini, Takito, et al., 2013).
Senior judo athletes win matches with different scores in different
stages in senior judo competitions (Ceylan et al., 2020). According to a
study examining the 2018-2019-2021 World Judo Championships in terms of
scores and penalties; In the preliminary matches such as elimination and
repechage, the majority of the competitions resulted in ippon, while the
quarterfinals and subsequent rounds resulted in more waza-ari
(Dopico-Calvo et al., 2023). This; It is also supported by a study
investigating the sex and standings of the 2011, 2016 and 2017 Grand
Slam Paris competitions. Katcips et al. (2018) stated that for the years
2011 and 2017, the match-winning status of especially male medalists was
ippon, and for the year 2016, male athletes had a higher shido index.
Again, ippon is seen as the key factor determining the winning in the
2016 Rio Olympic and Paralympic judo games (Kons et al., 2018). In
contrast, it was investigated that 6 out of 10 competitions concluded
with a shido score (Escobar-Molina et al., 2014).
Examining more than one competition in judo according to scores, sex or
weight category variables is mostly due to the rule change made by the
International Judo Federation (Barreto et al., 2022a; 2022b; Calmet et
al., 2017a, 2017b; Ceylan & Balcı, 2017; Doppelhammer & Stöckl, 2020;
Franchini et al., 2019; Katicips et al., 2018). In addition, in the
event of an epidemic crisis, the deficiencies of the study in which Judo
competitions were examined according to various variables attracted
attention. Therefore, The main hypotheses of this study are that the
match scores of the athletes who experience a decrease in training due
to the quarantine will change, and will also change in sex and weight
categories. Due to the Covid-19 quarantine seen in all countries of the
world, it is thought that the cancellation of important competitions in
the 2020 match calendar and carrying points to the Olympics, and the
return of the athletes to the matches, changes in the scores and
technical-tactical components in the competition.
Research aim. To examine match-related performances (e.g.
scores and penalties) of athletes in the Junior EJC (European Judo
Championships) and U23 EJC categories by gender and weight category
groups before and immediately after Covid-19 quarantine.