President Vizer greeted the members of the committee by welcoming them to the French capital, "Welcome to Paris, France, for the Olympic Games. I hope that we can start these Games in a very good state of mind. We must do everything so that our athletes can express themselves in the best possible conditions.
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Paula Pareto who has become an IOC member. Congratulations to her and to Argentina. This is a great achievement for our sport."
After the adoption of the minutes of the previous EC meeting and of the IJF congress that took place last year in Doha, under Dr Lisa Allan's leadership, Mr Shinji Hosokawa delivered a message from Mr Yasuhiro Yamashita, "Yamashita Sensei is not present in Paris this year but he wants to convey his warmest regards to the whole judo family and congratulate all of those who have been active to promote and develop judo in the footsteps of President Vizer and his vision for our sport."
Mr Vladimir Barta then gave details about the Olympic participation, "122 nations will take part in the judo event of Paris 2024, representing the five continents. We have an almost equal participation of men and women with 192 and 186 judoka respectively. Quota places were equal with 169 men and 169 women. The host country, France, will have their 14 athletes (7+7) and 20 universality places were assigned.
What is significant this year is also the number of mixed teams that will compete on the last day of competition. Thirteen teams qualified with 6 judoka and 5 teams qualified via a team invitation. To this we add the Olympic Refugee Team that will participate in the mixed team event like three years ago in Tokyo."
The competition will begin everyday at 10:00 am with elimination rounds and quarter-finals, while the final block will begin at 16:00 with the repechage, semi-finals, bronze medal contests and finals, followed by the victory ceremonies. On days 1, 3, 5 and 7, women will open the competition and on days 2, 4 and 6 it will be the men who will step on to the tatami first.
For the mixed team event, the elimination rounds will begin at 8:00 am and the final block (medal matches) at 16:00.
Florin Daniel Lascau and Mohamed Meridja presented refereeing and education matters, and Sanda Corak gave details about the IJF’s scientific journal and the Gender Equality Commission. and Jean-Luc Rougé explained the latest developments regarding dan grades.
Sabrina Filzmoser, who leads the IJF Athletes' Commission also congratulated Paula Pareto for her election as an IOC member and underlined the good work and representation of the athletes.
At the end of the meeting, Dr Laszlo Toth said that judo has never been as united as it is now, while Kate Corkery, who participated in her first EC meeting since she was elected President of the Oceania Judo Union, said that she was happy to be working with the whole judo family and that Oceania will be happy to welcome everyone to Brisbane in 2032 for the Olympic Games.
This concluded pre-Games activities. There is only the opening ceremony left before judo starts at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.