Judo at the 2024 Summer Olympics: what you need to know when and where the bouts will take place

One of the main events of the last four years will be the Summer Olympics in Paris. The Dailysports team tells you what you need to know about one of the disciplines of the games - judo.

Judo at the 2024 Summer Olympics: what disciplines?

The weight categories for men and women are radically different. If the former disciplines range from a minimum of 60kg to over 100kg, the women's disciplines are much smaller: from a minimum of 48kg to over 78kg.

The full list looks like this.

Judo, men, weight categories:

• Up to 60kg
• Up to 66 kg
• Up to 73 kg
• Up to 81 kg
• Up to 90 kg
• Up to 100 kg
• Over 100 kg

Judo, women, weight categories:

• Up to 48 kg
• Up to 52 kg
• Up to 57 kg
• Up to 63 kg
• Up to 70 kg
• Up to 78 kg
• Over 78kg

Mixed discipline

Judo at the 2024 Summer Olympics: who will take part?

In all 14 individual events, one place each has been reserved for host nation France. Another 15 in all disciplines - for the NOCs, which fulfil the principle of universality and have shown a desire to participate in this discipline (we told you about the principle of universality in detail separately).

The remaining judokas had to take part in a series of qualifying competitions, which took place from 24 June 2022 to 23 June 2024. The 17 quotas in each weight category were distributed according to the ranking of the International Judo Federation.

In addition, each continent had its own separate quota: 13 men and 12 women for Europe, 12 of each gender for Africa, 10 men and 11 women for the Americas, 10 of each gender for Asia and five of each gender for Oceania.

The mixed team competition will feature NOCs that have qualified their athletes in all six combined categories.

Also, five more places in the team event (one for each continent) will be allocated to the highest ranked NOCs that qualified judokas in only five of the six mixed team weight categories.

Among these NOCs, the highest ranked judoka who did not qualify would take the remaining spot to complete the team.

In total, each NOC could field no more than 14 judokas, meaning no more than one in each weight category for both women and men.

Judo at the 2024 Summer Olympics: when and where will the bouts take place?

Judo bouts will take place at the Grand Palais Ephemera on the Champ de Mars in Paris. This is a temporary hall that was built in 2021 and will be demolished once the games are over.

The first bouts will take place on 27 July. On that day, judokas up to 60kg for men and up to 48kg for women will take to the tatami. On the same day we will know the medallists of these weight categories.

After that the bouts will be held every day, in the order of increasing weight, and so until the 2nd of August. On the next day the bouts in the mixed tournament will take place, and it will close the judo programme at the Games in Paris.

History of judo at the Olympic Games

Judo made its debut as a sport at the Olympics in 1964, and not including the 1968 games, has been a regular feature of the Games programme.

Judo began at the Olympics with four categories, including the open category (no weight limit), which disappeared in 1988. The Los Angeles games in 1984 had the highest number of categories, eight.

After the abandonment of the open category of the Seoul Games in 1988, the number of men's weight categories has not changed and they are constantly seven. The most recent innovations in judo came with the Sydney 2000 games. It was then that the order of weight categories was established, which is set until now.

The women's judo tournament debuted at the Barcelona Games in 1992 with seven weight categories. This number has remained unchanged to this day, only the weight categories have changed, and, as with the men, also at the Sydney Games.

The most successful nation in this sport is Japan with 48 gold medals. This is three times more than the nearest pursuer in the overall medal standings - France.