If we were to pause and say it out loud we would certainly acknowledge that despite this pace of life, we understand that our sport is not as immediate as it appears. We are steamrolling through the days but always in the back of our mind is the wider view, the landscape oil painting depicting the longer plan, the perspective, every brushstroke important on the way to a perfect masterpiece.
A single Olympic cycle is not enough to build a champion. This is not news. So, how many? Two, three? In Sarajevo, at the World Championships for cadets, the USA team is under no illusion; they are here for this championship in its own right but the foundation is the premise levied by the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. It will be on their home turf and they want, even need, to arrive with a credible, well prepared team, one which can leave footprints on the podium.
Jhonny Prado, USA National Coach, said it first thing on day one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, “This is about building our team for 2028!”
Overseeing the whole USA Judo programme is Eddie Liddie, Director of Athlete Performance, “We are a small country in judo terms and so we have a small budget. For 8 or 9 years we had consistency in the coaching and in our top athletes. We did a lot of spending in that top group to keep them competitive, a team that included Travis Stevens, Kayla Harrison and Marti Malloy, Olympic silver, double gold and bronze respectively. It was a consistent base with a small budget spent on consistent athletes. We went all-in with that group."
"When we travel for judo, it’s not like in Europe. For us a whole trip for just one athlete can be $3000. It’s expensive so we have to take smaller teams. A lot of our number twos are self-funded.
We came out of that successful period and looked to quickly fill the next period, which didn’t work out so well. We tried and had good athletes but it didn’t happen for us.
Now we have this new group for Paris 2024 and LA 2028 and we have started travelling much earlier.”
So that’s the USA’s answer to the first question: they’re planning around a two-Olympic-cycle strategy. The cadets in Sarajevo at the World Championships are the ones being developed towards that American home Games. It’s a big group, bigger than travelling American cadet teams have been in recent years. A combination of reasons is to thank for the rise in international participation.
“We use Valencia as a second home and the coaches there have been fabulous. Our group feels really comfortable with the coaching there. Individuals and groups can go. We can get into Europe on a more consistent basis now, especially with that facility. A lot of the kids are taking online classes for school and so they really search for training opportunities.
We know it’s working. We are just back from Ecuador where Jack Yonezuka won a medal at the Junior World Championships. He has come from a judo family, his dad was an Olympian, but that doesn’t guarantee results and Jack has really put the work in."
We also have a more united staff and coaching team, including new coaches such as Colton Brown.” Brown competed at two Olympic Games and 6 senior world championships and also holds Tour medals. At only 30 years old but with so much experience and energy, his influence could be key.
“Next year will be a heavier schedule, certainly for the Paris potential group but we also have to be ready with a good home nation showing for the 2028 Games. Velazco fought for Peru, was an Olympian. He and Jhonny run the national training centre in Miami and now have about 30% of the national team living in the area. We have a few great places like that in the country."
"The national training camp in December was our biggest ever with around 120 national team members training together across the age categories. We tend to gather the whole national team in Dallas, Texas as the travel can be cheaper than in other places and they have a really great dojo facility at the Eastside Dojo. With the distances involved we can’t bring the whole team together so often but it’s getting better and better when we do.”
The big training centres are now well established enough that there have been whole generations work their way through and that has had an impact too, “The athlete who medalled on day one in Sarajevo, David Leiva, always watched Angie (Angelica Delgado) travelling into Europe. Adonis Diaz and Turner were also in Miami. The club judoka watched the seniors come and go and saw them fight on the World Judo Tour and even Olympic Games. They really know what needs to be done. The group now is of course not just from Florida but all of them, from all corners of the country are judo fans. All of our juniors live for judo. That makes it easier to guide them.
Even if LA wasn’t on the horizon, now that we are able to use funds at a lower level, our programme would work anyway. We get much of our funding from the Olympic Committee and LA just helps us sell our programme but really the good work is already being done.
We still don’t have a big budget and so more and more are coming to Europe on their own dime until they can make it into the funded group. It shows their dedication. They have to be in the top 4 at the USA nationals to make it onto the ‘elite roster.’ Those national medals are the starting point. We then put out opportunities to train and opportunities to compete and the top athletes can be funded while the rest on the elite programme can self-fund.
This current group will go anywhere to train hard. They imitate the top players internationally. They see how hard they fight and how competitive you must be all the way to the end of a day, of a match. David replicated that spirit perfectly in Sarajevo.”
Jhonny Prado offered some background on the first USA medallist at this Cadet World Championships, “David has been in Miami for 5 years. He has two siblings and mum and dad both train too. He’s a good boy, a good school student, a hard worker. We can’t ask for more from him.” David is one member of a team of many who are immersed in a full judo life.
Eddie continued, “Our overall goal was to see progression here and not just have a couple wins here and there. On day one we exceeded those expectations with our one bronze medal and we hope we can continue that through the week. For many it’s their first time competing on a big stage. We don’t want total pressure on them but also they need to learn to perform on the right day.”
Normally we bring full teams to the world championships and so we run trials for the junior and cadet worlds. The pressure of going into a trials gives an extra competition set-up without the travel. It’s part of teaching them to perform on the right day. They are hungry for it and very focussed.
We try to be as inclusive as we can on the coaching side too. We have a nucleus of national coaches but we allow others on our international coaching list who have completed various classes and come through the coaching levels, to travel with their players. With the budget as it is, they self-fund.
Aaron Cohen is here, former national team athlete and world championship competitor, to coach his nephew who took a medal recently in Spain, plus our -48kg and -57kg girls. We are happy to see the involvement of past elite players in this way. Nick Delpopolo will also be here to coach a player from his home club in Fort Worth.”
The pathway to LA is a basic, conscious focus on our up and coming athletes, giving them every ooortunity and pushing for more European competitions and camps. The budget has grown for them somewhat and there are now more people prepared to self-fund. We can put together the contacts and logistics for the team and they can travel safely with that information. We always had those contacts but we couldn’t use them without the budget allocation. Things look good.”
For the cadets themselves, no matter how dedicated they are, they are still very young and it’s difficult to fully understand what that road to the elite senior level looks like. David Leiva, USA Judo’s new cadet world bronze medallist explained how he felt about his medal-winning day, “It was stressful! The whole day was stressful. You train your whole life for one moment and it is this, the biggest tournament we can enter. All my life’s work in judo is here in just this one event and actually I’d say I did quite well.” David smiled.
“I have another year in the age category so I want to do this again. Maybe then I can move on to a junior worlds and after that I expect to get an Olympic medal. Considering I got a world medal here, maybe it’s not that impossible a plan.” He said these words in the knowledge that club mates have gone to the Games before him, it’s possible. He has faith in the possibility because it is evidenced.
“My favourite technique is sumi-gaeshi and I was able to use it in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was already using the technique but not so often and I sort of re-learned it at the US Open Camp right before we came out here. At the camp I realised how effective it was and I just did it over and over, working hard at improving it.
My favourite judoka is Hifumi Abe and the best fight I’ve ever seen was the Olympic trial contest between Abe and Maruyama. They worked so hard and never gave up, even after 20 minutes of fighting. We can learn a lot from that.”
It seems that following his heroes is a big part of David’s current success. “I didn’t give up. I’m a lot more confident now for whatever tournaments are coming next. I’m a confident person anyway but now I’ve shown that I’m on par and am not lagging behind. I’m so close to the top group in the world.”
It’s nowhere near too soon to be discussing Los Angeles 2028. Maybe Leiva will be there, maybe other members of this USA cadet team will be. Eddie Liddie won bronze in 1984 at the Olympic Games and maybe helping to recreate that performance with the cadets in his charge, or even exceeding it, makes it a potential fairytale for team USA and for Liddie himself. It seems he is working hard to fulfil Kano’s maxim about improving oneself in order to contribute to society. From all over America, the cadets are assembling to make their way to Los Angeles.