It was an opportunity to gauge the popularity of judo around the world, as the large number of nations jostled around the registration tables. There was good humour and plenty of discussion about judo. The congress, followed by the world championships, always offers a great opportunity for reunions and to discuss development.
The afternoon was also devoted to networking workshops on several topics of interest to the national federations: Olympic movement programmes, safeguarding, the IJF Academy, Clean Judo, and Judobase were the focus of exchanges with IJF experts.
Dr Lisa Allan, the IJF Secretary General explained, "Two years ago, Larisa Kiss, who is the Director of Olympic Games and Olympic Movement for Judo, and I had an idea about networking. We believed that was the reason for our existence as an organisation, to deliver a good service to the national federations.
As the congress was approaching, we worked very hard to organise those sessions. It's a premiere and I can say that it was very successful. It is such a nice thing to see the federation representatives talking together and finding new ideas. I do believe that a few important topics, coupled with nice networking moments, can make a big difference. Everybody was enjoying today.
I also want to underline that nothing would have been possible without the support of the entire IJF team. I was happy to see a lot of staff people and also Mr Jean-Luc Rougé, for instance. It helps a lot having big judo personalities like him on board."
Tomorrow, the next four years of the IJF will be decided. The work began years ago and continued today for the benefit of all judoka around the globe.