"I am very happy to be in Abu Dhabi enjoying the fantastic hospitality of the country. In Lisbon, because of the pandemic, we had 250 participants. Last year in Poland, we had 700 judoka and here we are exceeding 1000 athletes. This is fantastic and we can really say that we are totally back to normal. 65 countries from the five continents are represented. This is also a great achievement.
We had a very good start on the morning of day 1 with high quality judo. What I notice and like about the veterans is seeing friendship all around the event. This is totally in line with the World Judo Day theme, which was 'Bring a Friend.’ All our judoka brought many friends this year and are making new friends here.
As a consequence we have a massive audience and once again it's all about friendship. Because of the number of participants, we have decided on day two being in blocks. I truly believe that in the future we will keep developing. We have new members in the commission, more women, more young people. We are entering a new era for the veterans event. This is now the 2.0 version."
Follow the action on https://judotv.com/competitions/wc_vet2023/live