Judo To Rely On Proper Planning & Education

Fiji Judo Association will rely on proper planning and education to ensure that their athletes will have the best chance of qualifying for future Commonwealth and Olympic Games.

Association Secretary and Olympian Josateki Naulu said the National Federation currently has a pathway for their potential athletes aiming to participate at the Olympic Games.

"The Olympic qualification is a long process that takes 6-10 years, so we are looking at getting our talent identification right and all other areas of governance including funding structure," he said.

"This requires a lot of commitment from the NFs, athletes and it is a process that we are working on to qualify as many athletes to the Olympic Games."

Josateki said it would require a lot of capacity building and input from qualified individuals to get to the level of automatically qualifying athletes to the Olympic Games.

"We are grateful to Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee(FASANOC) for including us in the Oceania Sports Education Programme (OSEP) which is a step in the right direction for us," he said.

"Olympic qualification does not happen overnight. I believe we are on the right track but we are still just scratching the surface in terms of High Performance.”

Josateki said the NF was also looking at basing some additional athletes in Japan with plans to send them across to Europe for training camps and Olympic qualifying tournaments.

"While we do have plans in place, funding has always been an issue and we do hope we can attract sponsors to be part of our journey moving forward," he said.

Josateki said despite the plans the NF had there would always be challenges seen and unseen that they would have to prepare for.

"I have been involved in Judo long enough to understand that we need to adapt and adjust to challenges," he said.

"The list of challenges are long, but it is important that with proper planning and education around issues we are always learning and moving forward. We control what we can and leave the rest to God."

Recently the NF had sent two judokas who included Olympian Tevita Takayawa and 2019 Pacific Games Gold Medalist Shanice Takayawa to participate at the Tahiti Oceania Cup 2022.

Tevita did well to return with a Gold medal in -100kg event while teammate Shanice returned with a Bronze medal in the -70kg event.

Next up is the Oceania Open in Perth from the 29-30 October, 2022 which Josateki said carried 700 World Ranking points and Olympic points as well.

"It is part of the Olympic qualification tournaments, so our athletes have a goal in mind and that is to improve with every tournament that we participate in," Josateki said.

Tevita and Shanice are recipients of the Olympic Scholarships for Athlete “Paris 2024” program of which both athletes receive monthly financial support which assists with their training, preparation and participation in qualifying events towards Paris 2024.

Judo has been a part of Team Fiji at the Olympic Games since 1984 and judoka Olympian include Josateki Basalusalu, Simione Kuruvoli, Viliame Takayawa Snr, Nacanieli Takayawa, Elina Nasaudrodro, Sisilia Nasiga, Josateki Naulu, and most recently Japan based Tevita Takayawa.