Of course it does! It’s Olympic year and as we have seen since the inception of the Tour in 2009, the closer the Games get, the greater the rush and the higher the tension in the months immediately preceding the Olympic opening ceremony.
Odivelas will host many from the world’s top 20 in each weight category, some of whom are pretty safe in terms of their ticket to the Games but no-one has completed their pre-Games preparation, no-one has done all the analysis that needs to be done and no-one has safe seeding. Therefore, the jostling continues. There will be many interesting circumstances to see in the Portuguese capital but some are more tangible than others.
One
Japan is present and in quite some number but there is not a single member of the A or B team among seniors. This team is brimming with teenagers, some of whom have world medals at cadet and or junior level and are now testing themselves with this new big step up.
Yamato Fukuda (-60 kg), Komei Kawabata (-90 kg), Kano Miyaki (-48 kg), Mayu Honda (-70 kg) are among the team, all world champions in the same venue just a few months ago, winning gold medals at the Junior World Championships Odivelas 2023. Ryuga Tanaka (-73 kg), Yuta Nakamura (+100 kg) and Hikari Yoshioka (-48 kg) are also in attendance, 3 of Japan’s junior world champions from the Guayaquil edition in 2022.
It appears that Japan have mobilised their Los Angeles 2028 strategy and this team, despite it’s average age, are going to spoil the plans of many a senior seeking a ladder to the higher echelons of the World Ranking List in Portugal.
Two
The British women remain undecided; the Olympic places are still unclear in at least 3 weight categories.
At -70 kg Kelly Petersen Pollard is in direct qualification for the Games, sitting at 17th on the WRL. Fifth places in Tbilisi, Abu Dhabi and Perth, plus medals in Dushanbe and Linz last year form a good CV but her candidature is under attack from only two places below her.
Katie-Jemima Yeats-Brown placed 5th at the World Championships Doha and also in Perth and Dushanbe. She’s exciting to watch but the strength, dynamism and bravery with which she competes are not always enough and the medals eluded her in 2023. She’s capable of leap-frogging Petersen Pollard though, on the right day. These two are likely to yo-yo right up to the wire.
One category up, at -78 kg, world medallist Natalie Powell has been out of action with injury for some time, allowing teammate Emma Reid to climb above her on the Olympic rankings, Emma at 22 and Powell at 27 respectively. Powell has always had some firepower at her disposal but Reid’s subtle push for qualification has not gone unnoticed. Portugal could be a real flash point, perhaps even the decider.
Double world medallist Nekoda Smythe-Davis is also in play, at -57 kg, in a head-to-head race to Paris with big thrower Lele Nairne. Nairne isn’t competing in Portugal and as Smythe-Davis is already a few places into the lead, a good result could widen the gap.
Three
The world champions aren’t holding back. We know that anything can happen in any judo contest but there is always an expectation of excellence when a world champion steps up to fight, no matter who they are facing. They draw the best out of those around them, raising the level for everyone.
Tasoev (AIN), Granda (CUB), Bobonov (UZB), Matic (CRO), Muki (ISR) and Adamian (AIN) are all in, making the opposition stand up tall to meet them or perhaps shrink under the pressure. No matter the outcome, the champions won’t be there on holiday; there are points to be won, seedings to ratify and backpatches to honour.
As the event approaches, catch all the draws, statistics and predictions on JudoTV.com