Category Archives: beijing

The ages of Olympic Grapplers (Judo and Freestyle Wrestling).

www.army.milIn this article we look at the ages of Judo athletes and of Freestyle Wrestlers at the Olympic level, this follows on from the article back in March (2009) on the “Ages of medalists at 2009 Judo World Cup events.” in which the age of Judo athletes competing at a high level was briefly examined.  In this article we look at ages of athletes in more detail and compare Judo against our Olympic cousins Freestyle Wrestlers.

In March the average age of a medalist was identified as being 24.95, looking at the larger pool of athletes in the 2008, 2004, 2000 and 1996 Olympic games the average age of a medalist in Judo is 25.54 for men and 24.99 for women.

Judo Gold medalists are on average 25.07. The other Judo medalists are on average 25.27. If we compare this to Freestyle Wrestling where the average age of athletes is 25.41 and gold medalists are on average 23.83 years of age.

What does this tell us?

One interpretation of this information is that grapplers at the Olympic level are in their mid twenties.

If we believe the theory that it takes 10 years to reach the elite level (as popularized by Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers book – UK/US) then we need to start working with young Judo athletes of 14/15 years. Obviously a 14 year old is not (normally) fully mature physically, so a long-term strategy needs to be implemented to bring the young athlete to the Olympic stage.

Having said that, if we look at the average age of Judo athletes over the 4 Olympic (1996-2008), we see the average age has actually crept up over this time from 24.96 to 26.14 years. The gap between gold and the average has changed too, from about three months in 1996 to 1 year in 2008. So perhaps the best players (the gold medalists) is not going up as fast as for the rest of the players? A simple examination does not make this clear, especially as the sample size of gold medalists is of course much smaller than the general population.

This is a small example of the sort of information this data can tell us. If you are a national governing body, do you invest your limited resources in athletes who will be outside of their mid-twenties? Do you target 14 year old athletes? This data can’t answer those questions, but with better research perhaps you could find the objective information to help make decisions in this area?

I shall look at the data in more detail but perhaps you’d rather do it for yourself?
I have uploaded my raw data at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqIP2spU5FrFdFR5UFdTUzdmaHVfc0FvUzZpLUR4YXc&hl=en

This  simple examination of Judo data is an example of the type of activities coaches on the EJU coaching certification courses do. It is also an examination of the type that can lead to more through research which could lead you to the International Association of Researchers.

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Data was collected from http://www.sports-reference.com/olympics

A quick test of notation reliability.

I am, as some are aware, presently researching the attack rates of athletes in the 2008 Olympic Judo tournament in Beijing. To do this I am notating the attacks made by each athlete and analyzing the results. As with many forms of analysis there are issues to be addressed around the calidity of the data. One of which is how accurate your recording is, in this post I would like to invite you to help my project by notating a short video from YouTube and emailing me your result, this will be helpful so I can see what the variations in the data are. I shall post the findings of this experiment afterwards.

Notation Methodology:

Take a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle of the page and notate as follows:

On the paper based hand notation form each attack will be recorded as a vertical line “|” if the
opponent does not touch the floor with another part of the body other than the feet. A “+” will be
recorded if the attack does cause the opponent to touch the floor with another part of their body but
no score is given. The form has two columns, one for each player, the “|” is placed in the
appropriate column for each player. If a score was given, no “|” is marked,  a letter indicating the
score is written instead. These are K for Koka,  Y for Yuko, W for Wazari, I for Ippon and P for a
penalty. When Matte was called, the recorder moves down one line on the notation form. If no
attack has been made a horizontal line is recorded “-”, is neither player has attacked, then both
columns have a “-” recorded. Each period between the referee’s “Hajime” call and “Matte” call is
termed a segment and recorded on a separate line on the form.

If you could forward your notation to me (lw@judocoach.com) that would be terrific, it will be interesting to see how many people participate and also how much the data varys between people. I shall keep your data anonymous of course.

Many Thanks,

Lance.

Hello world!

Hello everyone,

this is the beginning of a new web project by Lance Wicks.

The idea here is to develop and share Judo analytical tools for the statistical analysis of Judo competitions. The initial project this site will be covering is a notational analysis of the Beinjing 2008 Olympic Judo competition. This is being hand notated and the results will be shared here.

Please visit regularly as the site shall start shanging rapidly over the next few months.

Lance.