On the 27th of July, the Paris Olympic Games kicked off the judo tournament, in which 378 athletes (192 men and 186 women) from 122 countries on five continents are competing for 14 sets of medals in seven men's and seven women's weight categories.
Turkmenistan is represented in this type of program by two Olympic debutants, but already mature beyond their years and well-known athletes in world judo - 20-year-old flag bearer of our delegation in Paris-2024 Serdar Rahimov and 19-year-old Maysa Pardayeva.
Over the past two years, Serdar has won six medals at major international competitions, including the first gold medal in the history of Turkmenistan at the prestigious Grand Slam World Series tournament in Tajikistan - «Dushanbe Grand Slam 2024», which in its status is second only to the Olympic Games and the World Championship. And in the Olympic qualifying cycle, Maysa won 7 medals at prestigious international competitions, including bronze at the 19th Summer Asian Games in Hangzhou (China) and the Grand Slam tournament in Türkiye - «Antalya Grand Slam 2024».
The competition program of Turkmen Olympians at the 2024 Games in Paris will be opened on the 28th of July by Serdar Rahimov. He will perform in his traditional weight category of up to 66 kg, in which 27 judokas will fight for medals. According to the results of the draw, in the first round, our judoka will face 27-year-old bronze medalist of the African Championship, two-time winner of the open African tournament in Luanda Edmilson Pedro from Angola. In case of victory over him, in the next round, Serdar Rahimov will meet the winner of the pair Willian Lima (Brazil) - Sardor Nurillayev (Uzbekistan).
Maysa Pardayeva will also take to the Olympic tatami on the 29th of July in her usual weight category of up to 57 kg, in which 28 judokas will compete. In the first fight, she will face the 29-year-old bronze medalist of the 2023 World Cup in Warsaw, the 2023 Grand Slam in Kazakhstan, the 2023 Grand Prix in Dushanbe and the 2024 Asian Championships in Hong Kong, Cai Qi from China, whom Maysa has already met three times before. The Chinese woman won the Grand Slam in Tbilisi last March. But the next two fights for the bronze medal at the 19th Summer Asian Games in Hangzhou and the Grand Slam tournament in Antalya, Turkey were won by our compatriot.
In recent years, the Judo Federation of Turkmenistan, headed by Velmyrat Gurbanmyradov since 2019, has achieved significant success in developing this Olympic wrestling. Guided by the instructions of the National Leader of the Turkmen people, Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, in 2023, a well-known Japanese specialist in this sport, Kazuhiko Tokuno, was invited to work in Turkmenistan to prepare our judokas for major international competitions. In 1995, he became the 1995 Asian Champion in New Delhi, and in 1998, the winner of the XIII Summer Asian Games in Bangkok. He won medals twice at the World Championships: silver in Birmingham in 1999 and bronze in Munich in 2001.
After finishing his career as an athlete, Kazuhiko Tokuno spent many years as a coach of the Japanese women's national teams of all ages, as well as the Komatsu club team. In 2011, he was recognized as the best coach among women's team coaches by the International Judo Federation (IJF). He trained a number of medalists of world championships, Olympic Games, World Universiades, Asian Championships, Asian Games and other major international tournaments.
And now Kazuhiko Tokuno is fruitfully working in Turkmenistan, bringing world fame to the national school of judo. Evidence of this is a number of major successes that Turkmen athletes achieved under the guidance of an experienced judo master from Japan at the 19th Summer Asian Games in Hangzhou (China), the World Cadet Championship in Zagreb (Croatia), the Asian Cadet Championship in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), the 2nd CIS Games in the Republic of Belarus and at the most prestigious Grand Slam tournaments in Tokyo, Antalya, Dushanbe, which in terms of status are second only to the Olympic Games and the World Championship.
With the assistance of the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports and the Judo Federation of Turkmenistan, in preparation for the 2024 Olympic Games, Turkmen judokas have taken part in 15 major international competitions in the last eight months alone and held training camps in a number of European and Asian countries, including in Japan's recognized judo centers - Tokai University and the Kodokan Institute, which was founded by the creator of judo, Jigoro Kano. The result of these efforts was two Olympic licenses won in this popular sport on the planet, which for the first time give Serdar Rahimov and Maysa Pardayeva the opportunity to compete for medals at the main competitions of the four-year period.
Let's wish our athletes success in the Olympic arenas of Paris!
