Judo has been part of the Olympics since Tokyo 1964. It was absent from Mexico City in 1968, came back in 1972 and has stayed ever since. Women's judo became an official Olympic event at Barcelona 1992, and the mixed team event arrived at the Tokyo Games held in 2021. Today the Olympic judo tournament has fourteen individual weight classes and one team event.
1964: the debut in Tokyo, at the Budokan
Judo made its Olympic debut at home, in Japan, in a hall built for the occasion: the Nippon Budokan. The symbolism was strong. Jigoro Kano, the first Asian member of the IOC, had fought to bring the Games to Tokyo before the war. He did not live to see his sport on the program.
That first tournament had only four divisions: three weight classes and an open category. The open is the one people remember. Dutchman Anton Geesink beat Japan's Akio Kaminaga in the final, in front of a Japanese crowd. From that day, judo stopped being a purely Japanese affair. Coaches still use the story to make a point: a well-prepared athlete with sound technique and power can beat the founding school on its own ground.
1968 and 1972: out, then back for good
Judo was not included at the 1968 Mexico City Games. It returned at Munich in 1972 and has featured at every edition since. The number of weight classes grew over the following Olympiads as the sport organized itself worldwide. The open category was later dropped from the Olympic program, leaving weight classes only.
1988 and 1992: women's judo arrives
Women had been competing at world championships since 1980. At the Olympics, they appeared as a demonstration event in Seoul in 1988, then became an official event in Barcelona in 1992, with seven weight classes like the men.
Our article on women's judo looks at the place of women in the sport beyond elite level.
Tokyo 2020: the mixed team event
The Tokyo Games, postponed to 2021 because of the pandemic, introduced a new event: the mixed team. Each nation fields men and women across six broader weight groups, three per sex, and matches are decided by the number of contests won. The format rewards depth rather than one star. A country can no longer rely on a single champion. It needs solid judoka in six weight groups, able to fight several matches in the same day. Crowds love it, because it often comes down to the last contest.
For the occasion, judo went back to the Budokan, fifty-seven years after its first Olympic appearance. Paris then hosted Olympic judo in 2024, in a temporary arena on the Champ-de-Mars.
Olympic judo weight classes
| Men | Women |
|---|---|
| -60 kg | -48 kg |
| -66 kg | -52 kg |
| -73 kg | -57 kg |
| -81 kg | -63 kg |
| -90 kg | -70 kg |
| -100 kg | -78 kg |
| +100 kg | +78 kg |
These are the same categories as on the senior international circuit. Our guide to judo weight categories also covers the youth categories, which differ.
How the Olympic judo tournament works
Each nation can enter only one judoka per weight class. Qualification runs through the world ranking of the International Judo Federation, built from results over the qualification period. We explain how it works in our article on the IJF world ranking.
The draw is single elimination, with seeds. From the quarter-finals on, losers enter the repechage:
- Quarter-final winners go through to the semi-finals.
- Quarter-final losers meet in the repechage.
- Repechage winners face the semi-final losers.
- Those two contests decide two bronze medals.
Contests follow IJF rules. An ippon ends the fight, two waza-ari make an ippon, and a tie at the end of regulation time goes to golden score, where the first score wins. The full picture is on our page about judo rules.
What the Olympics changed in judo
Olympic status brought weight classes, standardised refereeing and the blue judogi, introduced so spectators and officials could tell the two athletes apart. It also pushed judo toward physical performance. Some older judoka miss a less wrestling-style sport. Their point has some weight, but recent rule changes have put throwing back at the center: grabbing the legs is penalised, and ippon remains the only way to win before time runs out.
For a young judoka who dreams of the Games, the road runs through years of club training, then regional and national competition. We break that down in our article on judo competition levels. Our advice to anyone starting out: watch a full Olympic tournament day, from the early rounds to the finals. The early rounds show better than any class how a judoka handles grip fighting against an unfamiliar style.