Judo injuries will never be eliminated if they are identified as “random accidents”

The report of the judo injury in a prefectural high school in Oita on May 21, 2015 was issued by the Prefectural Judo Safe Instruction Investigation Committee established by the Oita Education Board.   
The committee concluded that the injury of a student, which resulted in acute subdural hematoma, was an unexpected contingent accident.
If it was an event that happened accidentally, as the report said, it was unpreventable, hence similar accidents may occur in any country around the world. While the number of judoka in France is 600,000, about 4times that of Japan, and in Germany 400,000, about twice as many as Japan, none of the children in these countries and any other part of the world has died or suffered serious injury due to similar judo accidents.

Why do “contingent accidents” in judo occur only in Japan? Why do children die or become seriously injured due to judo-related accidents only in this country? That was the question we wanted the committee to clarify, but the case was closed when the committee said that the injury was an accident that happened incidentally.

The report stated that “No problem was found in the way the school acted before and after the injury.” However, if the injury had been announced immediately to the public after the event, thus sending a warning, the judo death in Fukuoka the next day, May 22, may have been prevented.

In Japan sports injuries are called “sports jiko”. “Jiko” means unfortunate and unpreventable accident. “Sports injury” is the term used internationally and many are preventable. When will “sports accident” change to sports injury in Japan?

January 16, 2016




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