IJF

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Recorded May 13, 2026

Foundational federation milestone — IJF traces its rule-making lineage to an 11 July 1951 meeting in London at which the European Judo Union (Great Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) received Argentina's candidacy and constituted the International Judo Federation. Aldo Torti of Italy became the first IJF president. Every modern IJF rule on contest format, refereeing decisions, weight categories, anti-doping, and World Judo Tour competition format descends from the rule-making mandate established at this 1951 London founding, making the IJF among the oldest continuously-operating international combat-sport federations.

Recorded May 9, 2026

Major contest-format reform. In January 2013, the IJF removed the hantei — the referee-decision tiebreaker by which judges decided otherwise-tied matches — and simultaneously lifted the time limit on the "Golden Score" overtime period. The combined effect: matches that ran out their regulation clock no longer ended via a low-confidence judges' decision; instead, every unresolved bout entered an open-ended sudden-victory phase that ran until the next score (or shido penalty) decided the outcome. The 2013 reform shifted IJF judo decisively toward a decisive-action contest format and is the proximate ancestor of every subsequent Golden Score rule revision.

Recorded May 9, 2026

Most consequential modern scoring-system change in IJF judo. In 2017, the International Judo Federation eliminated the yuko score tier and consolidated match outcomes to two scoring values only — ippon (the full-point match-ending score) and waza-ari (the half-point score). Techniques that previously scored yuko were re-graded into waza-ari, simplifying the on-screen score readout for spectators and tightening refereeing consistency across the World Judo Tour. The complementary "two waza-ari equal an ippon" sub-rule (waza-ari awasete ippon) was briefly cancelled in 2017 and resumed in 2018 — the post-2018 form is the one in continuous use today. Every subsequent IJF Refereeing Rule revision operates within the post-2017 ippon/waza-ari frame, not the pre-2017 ippon/waza-ari/yuko/koka frame.

Recorded May 9, 2026

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Recorded Mar 22, 2026