For more than two hours, the large audience present on site and the Internet users who followed the conference online were able to attend high-quality presentations and debates, which allowed them to put the history of our discipline and its development into perspective as well as its advent as a major Olympic sport.
After the welcoming words of the Director of the Maison Culturelle du Japon in Paris, the historian Patrick Clastre drew a portrait of Kano Jigoro Shihan, the founder of judo, and Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who breathed new life into the movement Olympic.
Then it was Michel Brousse's turn to detail how judo went from a discipline with a strong Japanese and Asian character to the universal Olympic sport that we know today.
After these two detailed presentations, Thierry Rey, the first French judoka to win both world and Olympic titles, today very involved in the organisation of the Paris 2024 Games, presented his journey from his first steps in judo to the Games coming up in a few months.
The second part of the conference focused on testimonies and a fruitful exchange between the speakers and the public. First of all, Jean-Luc Rougé spoke about his experience as an athlete and then as a manager. He placed particular emphasis on the experience of the 1980 Moscow Games, during which the sports movement mobilised so that French athletes could participate. There was then Brigitte Deydier, three-time world champion and Olympic medallist, who emphasised the drive for female participation, before Fabien Canu, two-time world champion and now director of INSEP in Paris, spoke of the preparation of the French teams for Paris 2024.
Nicolas Messner, IJF Media and Judo for Peace Director, recalled in conclusion that international judo walks on two legs, one sporting and the other educational. He detailed the type of actions that the IJF takes through its Judo for Peace and Judo for Children programmes. All that remained was to let the public speak, who were able to ask their questions and obtain detailed answers from the experts.
The conference was therefore a special moment, a moment of reflection and analysis of the common points between judo and the Olympic movement. Beyond that, it was a moment of exchange and sharing that gathered together many generations of judoka.