London Olympics 2012: a disappointing result

This past week, I watched more tv than I do in a whole year. From 5 o'clock to about 10 o'clock I was pretty much glued to the tv, following the live broadcast of the judo competition. I was very hopeful for the Japanese team. I was especially excited to watch Haruka Tachimoto (4th year at Tokai) and Riki Nakaya (a graduate from Tokai) compete in their first Olympics.

Note: Picture taken from Google images. I do not own this picture.

Unfortunately, the team did not do as well as expected. They only won 7 medals. Out of those 7 medals, only one gold (Matsumoto -57kg), 3 silver (Nakaya -73kg, Sugimoto +78kg, Hiraoka -66kg) and 3 bronze (Ebinuma -66kg, Nishiyama -90kg, Ueno -63kg). And many of the athletes lost in the second round, a big upset.

If it were Canada, 7 medals would be amazing. Just winning one medal is an amazing feat. But for Japan, it's not good enough. For Japan, as repeated many times by the Japanese judo athletes in interviews, there is only gold. Nothing else counts.

I'm not sure exactly what was missing or what went wrong. Is it simply that the other athletes were better? I don't think so. Was it the mental preparation? It's more likely a number of factors and they will surely be examined intensively by the Japanese judo coaches and managers in the months to come.