Wellbeing is the theme of World Judo Day 2024 and forces each individual to really consider, what is that we do to ensure we are healthy, physically and emotionally well? What brings you happiness? In recent years it has become less of a taboo subject, to discuss ones mental health and the impact it can have on an individual. World Judo Day unites the global judo community in celebrating the sport’s values, including respect, perseverance, and mutual aid.
Within sports it is extremely prevalent, the mounting pressures of major events, how to cope with loss, with injuries, all is now widely discussed on social media, and by doing so, opens the door to seek help. It is such a broad subject that also delves in to the realm of social media and the dangers it can pose, like anything, if it is abused. So with World Judo Day 2024, we look to see how the focus on well being serves as a reminder of the sport’s enduring power to transform lives, as well as bring balance to body, mind, and spirit.
For World Judo Day, we spoke with the new Olympic Champion of the -78kg category, Alice BELLANDI (ITA). It has been a rollercoaster ride for the young Italian who competed in the Tokyo Olympic Games in the -70kg category, dealt with extreme lows following her Olympic debut, and has grown so much since. So how does wellbeing look to Bellandi?
Since winning her Olympic gold medal in Paris, one would expect there to be pure joy and happiness that followed, but Bellandi, as always, was honest and open about her experience and urges others to share and seek help when it is needed.
My journey to Tokyo was quite hard, everything that came before, I had problems with weight cutting, 12 or 13kg every tournament, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t professional, this was what people said, they only saw the number on the scale and not the bigger problems behind it. I wasn’t doing well in my personal life, I was having coach issues, food was my safe place is the only way I can explain it. Before Covid, I was in direct qualification, and then this extra year, in a category I was struggling in with my weight, it was my worst moment. During lockdown I was 90kg, and I tried to fight in -78kg as we came out of lockdown but our team couldn’t compete because of positive cases.
It was my wish to carry on and see it out until Toyko, it wasn’t easy though, in the last competition, the World Championships, I was not direct quota, and I lost my second round. You know how these things can change and I was waiting. Finally Tokyo was a breath that I could take, for me it was one of the happiest moments in my career at that point. But I felt like I was in a cage, everything felt tight on me, like I couldn’t explode. In every fight, I just felt tight, something was burning that I just couldn’t get out, and I was suffering with depression. I felt alone. In that moment, the person helping me was Frank Bruyere, he supported me, at this point I had left my other coach a few months ago. After all of this, I felt like I couldn’t get any lower, I was just lying on the ground.
Post Tokyo, Bellandi explained she had two choices, to give up, or to restart. Of course, the current Olympic Champion chose the latter, and with that a new category, a new coach, Antonio Ciano, a new mental coach and nutritionist, but she admits that there was a lot that needed healing. This mental coach has allowed Bellandi to see more clearly, control her emotions and not allow them to control her, whether it is on or off the tatami.
In all of this I discovered that these fights, are not really about judo, it is mental. I remember every single second of my semi final in Doha, to be honest I thought about it for six months after, but on this occasion I could see it from another point of view. Even now I can see that my Olympic medal was not the important part, but my journey over the past three years, every step that I took, because I know what it was like, to lie on that floor in the dark, I remember.
The day that I won was the best day of my life, but you expect that the Olympic gold medal is happiness, but it isn’t like that. The moment was happy, but I’m going to be honest, I had a really tough time afterwards. Everyone thinks having that medal around your neck brings you happiness, that you have no right to feel anything else now you’re champion, like you’re not human anymore. I was frustrated, I could feel depression again, I felt the alarm but fortunately I had the right people around me. After something that big, it is hard to find happiness again. Now I try to normalise things and I seek happiness in moments, in small things and enjoying what you’re doing. I am finding ways to make myself happy, trying new sports, looking to study.
Standing in a position of great experience at only 25 years old, Bellandi has words of wisdom for anything struggling with their well being, be it physical or mental.
My advice is that sharing is the powerful tool me have, we are never alone if we share. When you do, you understand how many other people have been in the same place. I have received so many messages and now I know, I’m not alone. You might feel broken, alone like the little duckling, you feel ‘wrong’ in life and when you start to share, you hear similar stories, that is when you understand, asking for help is nothing to be ashamed of, it is normal. One thing I learned, is that just because we live in this body, we don’t know everything about ourselves.
Judoka
Author: Thea Cowen