Today was the first day of the EJU Refereeing and Coaching Seminar 2023 in Coimbra, Portugal. This seminar isn’t only for those residing in Europe however, this is open to the judo family from around the world. This occasion marks the second year of cooperation with the International Judo Federation on the delivery of this education tool and today was a success.
EJU Vice President, Hrvoje LINDI was very pleased with the opening day of the seminar,
We can be really happy about the seminar and the turnout, we started cooperation with the IJF last year so we have representatives from them including; IJF Head Referee Directors, Florin Daniel LASCAU and Armen BAGSASAROV. The project was started last year and now we continue with the support of the presidents, Mr Vizer and Mr Toth, what we can see is that there are good interactions between the referees, coaches and the commission and that this is the right place to be to have discussions and find solutions. We are not a ‘stop-watch sport’ so these are necessary for judo and the result is positive.
The Head Sport Director, Catarina RODRIGUES, also a member of the Portuguese Judo Federation couldn’t be more pleased to be hosting the event here and appreciated that this information and education is imperative for coaches and referees alike in order to benefit the athletes, some of whom will be attending the Paris Olympic Games in less than 500 days.
Last year we started again with the EJU Refereeing and Coaching Seminar, it was very important to have this, and because we started cooperation with the IJF, we also had Mr Daniel Lascau – IJF Head Referee Director there. As was discussed this morning, judo has one mind, one line of judgement so this work with the IJF is good for these coaches and referees. It is great to be hosting it here in Coimbra, we have here the IJF referees, head directors from other continents so I think it shows the importance of it, also we have less than 500 days to go until the Olympic Games so these rules need to be clear.
A common theme is the constant need for reeducation, whether it be coaches or athletes, but the issue seems to be lying in the new generations feeding through that don’t have a full comprehension of the rules. Lascau addresses this,
What we have spoken about here today is the responsibility of coaches, of referees, of people who are involved in the development of judo could be technical director or simply someone who is just working for the federation, now what we are doing here should be going down from national level to the club level. We need to make sure that this information isn’t just being received by the seniors but that it is going to the juniors and cadets as well.
Alexandr JATSKEVITCH has not only climbed the ranks of refereeing to become the Head Referee Director of the European Judo Union, but stood on the tatami as an athlete and sat in the chair as a coach, so he knows these scenarios from every angle and where the education must be focussed.
Education process, we have had three European Opens, first in Sofia, then Warsaw and just now in Rome and we are seeing the same mistakes always so we have to strive to improve and take care of the players and coaches to help them see that we can’t do such techniques with diving. It is actually in the hands of coaches and then when we have seminars with no examples, we can say that we don’t do it anymore.
The seminar will resume tomorrow at 09:30 (GMT).
Author: Thea Cowen