FAQ

What is Pro Judo?

Pro Judo is a fan site for following international judo. We collect results and individual fights from IJF World Tour events — Grand Prix, Grand Slam, Worlds, and similar senior competitions — and organise them so you can explore athletes, countries, and who is in form right now.

Right now the site covers 2009–2026, with 22444 athletes, 195497 recorded contests, and 72678 podium places (gold, silver, bronze).

What can I do on the site?

• Search for any athlete by name, or type a three-letter country code (e.g. JPN) to jump to that nation’s page.
• Fighter profiles show medals, major titles, every contest we have, and how their rating has changed over time.
• Country pages summarise a nation’s medals by year and list their strongest athletes — try Japan or your own country.
• The Leaderboard ranks athletes by rating. You can narrow it to men or women, a weight class, one country, or only people still competing recently.

Why might the same name appear once, or medals look grouped oddly?

Profiles are tied to the name and country shown on IJF results. If someone competes under a different flag or the federation lists an unusual code, we try to keep one profile per person so their whole career stays together (for example some Russian entries listed under neutral codes are counted as Russia for consistency).

What does the green dot mean?

It means the athlete fought on the World Tour this year or last year. It is a quick way to spot who is still active — not an official IJF “licensed” status.

Understanding the ELO rating

Beside many names you will see an ELO number. Think of it like a power rating in chess or video games: it goes up when you beat strong opponents and down when you lose, especially to lower-rated rivals.

Everyone starts at 1000

The first time we see someone in a recorded contest, their rating is 1000. After that, every win or loss on the tatami nudges the number up or down.

Favourites and upsets

Before each fight the system guesses who is more likely to win based on both athletes’ ratings going in. If the favourite wins, their rating barely moves — that was expected. If the underdog wins, they get a big boost and the favourite drops more than after a normal loss.

So beating a top-10 style rival at a Grand Slam matters much more than beating someone who has mostly lost lately, even if both count as one win on the day.

How much each fight counts

We use a standard “responsiveness” setting so each result matters, but not so much that one lucky weekend rewrites a whole career. In practice you need consistent wins against good opposition to climb the leaderboard — one medal alone is not enough if the path there was mostly easier draws.

History is built in order

Ratings are updated in real time order — from older seasons through to today, contest by contest. Your number today reflects your entire World Tour record in our data, not just this season. That is why veterans with hundreds of fights change more slowly than a newcomer after each single result.

What the numbers on a profile mean

• The big ELO on a fighter page is their rating after their latest contest in our records.
• The chart shows how that rating rose and fell after each fight — useful for seeing momentum before a big event.
• On the Leaderboard, if you choose a weight division (e.g. −63 kg), the rating shown is from their last fight in that division, which matches how judo fans usually compare athletes.

When is there no rating change?

Almost every completed IJF contest updates both athletes. Rare cases with no clear winner in our data are left out so the ratings stay fair.