"THE GOLDEN SCORE" The GOLDEN SCORE also known as the 'Non Hantei system' could be a great change in this new 21st century with the only aim to improve Judo competition. We all know that in Judo contest one of the most weakest point in terms of refereeing is at the moment to award a winner by means of flags through Hantei. In theory it should be no problem as we all know what a Kinsa means and how should we count all advantages done during the contest in order to be ready with a decision taken when calling for the Hantei. In practice it's quite different, many results are surprising and inconsistent specially when contest is at international level whereby referees do evaluate Kinsas in a different way and sometimes results are not adequate to what we have seen, consequently creates confusion and disagreement. And not only appears surprising and disagreement among competitors and coaches but also among referees, sometimes the Hantei given is totally unacceptable. The reason is quite simple, despite of many refereeing seminars all over the world, it's quite difficult to get the same perception on a Kinsa from all referees even if they all know Judo. That means that if we should try to write some rules about evaluation of Kinsa, it would take us more than a large book, consequently completely inapplicable. Looking for a system which could avoid that a contest result would remain on referees visual perception, we have arrived to find out this new formula which has been under experimental period in Europe during half a year (since EJU Junior Ch's last December in Cyprus until the EJU Seniors last may in Paris) with spectacular results. During the EJU Ordinary Congress (April, Seville-Spain) it was agreed after testing almost 4000 fights, to introduce the Golden Score in Europe definitively. Other sports, do also have something similar like the 'Golden Goal' in football or the 'Sudden death' In tennis, and I suppose other sports are also looking for something similar however we should apply technically this formula to our –sometimes complicated sport- in order to make it easier to understand for everybody and that's what we have done. The first flash I got it when I was invited with Mr. Kojima last year in China, in a small town called Shin Tao of 1.3 millions of inhabitants (small for being Chinese of course) and there I saw a Judo contest quite important for them as it was selective for the Chinese women's team out for the OG in Sydney. The fights were endless, no time limit but until one contestant (after the time allotted for the contest) was getting a score under the basis that it should only win the best one. There were no claims and all coaches seemed to accept quite well this system. "THE GOLDEN SCORE" The GOLDEN SCORE also known as the 'Non Hantei system' could be a great change in this new 21st century with the only aim to improve Judo competition. We all know that in Judo contest one of the most weakest point in terms of refereeing is at the moment to award a winner by means of flags through Hantei. In theory it should be no problem as we all know what a Kinsa means and how should we count all advantages done during the contest in order to be ready with a decision taken when calling for the Hantei. In practice it's quite different, many results are surprising and inconsistent specially when contest is at international level whereby referees do evaluate Kinsas in a different way and sometimes results are not adequate to what we have seen, consequently creates confusion and disagreement. And not only appears surprising and disagreement among competitors and coaches but also among referees, sometimes the Hantei given is totally unacceptable. The reason is quite simple, despite of many refereeing seminars all over the world, it's quite difficult to get the same perception on a Kinsa from all referees even if they all know Judo. That means that if we should try to write some rules about evaluation of Kinsa, it would take us more than a large book, consequently completely inapplicable. Looking for a system which could avoid that a contest result would remain on referees visual perception, we have arrived to find out this new formula which has been under experimental period in Europe during half a year (since EJU Junior Ch's last December in Cyprus until the EJU Seniors last may in Paris) with spectacular results. During the EJU Ordinary Congress (April, Seville-Spain) it was agreed after testing almost 4000 fights, to introduce the Golden Score in Europe definitively. Other sports, do also have something similar like the 'Golden Goal' in football or the 'Sudden death' In tennis, and I suppose other sports are also looking for something similar however we should apply technically this formula to our –sometimes complicated sport- in order to make it easier to understand for everybody and that's what we have done. The first flash I got it when I was invited with Mr. Kojima last year in China, in a small town called Shin Tao of 1.3 millions of inhabitants (small for being Chinese of course) and there I saw a Judo contest quite important for them as it was selective for the Chinese women's team out for the OG in Sydney. The fights were endless, no time limit but until one contestant (after the time allotted for the contest) was getting a score under the basis that it should only win the best one. There were no claims and all coaches seemed to accept quite well this system. At that moment I started thinking the technical way and how to apply some kind of improvement in our Judo contest based on the basis of "first scores wins the fight" in order to avoid flags decision. After comments with my EJU Refereeing commission, they saw it positive too and I started to elaborate the technical application of the Golden Score. We experimented at the EJU Juniors in Cyprus, then with the Seniors and Juniors in Spain, after, several countries have also try it like Germany, Holland, Great Britain all with great success. Once people have tried, nobody wants to go back to Hantei, coaches much prefer this system as they say from now and on they don't need to be hanging on referees decisions and even competitors they prefer to relay on their possibilities and certainly not on flags. To give an idea about the consisting of the GOLDEN SCORE, I would say that first of all Hantei is off the picture. If the contest ends with equal results, the referee calls Mate, the scoreboard is resettled to restart and Hajime again the fight continues. At that particular moment, the first who scores (or the opponent is penalized) is the winner, in other words, "first scores wins". No more complains about decisions, now wins the most skilful fighter, everybody is happy or at least the result must now be accepted as it becomes from a score and not from raising flags. In the event that all the extra time is used without any score/penalty, then of course we must go to the Hantei as it couldn't be endless but, as you may see below, very few contest (only 12 over 4.000 fights) did use the whole extended time as the fight becomes much more dynamic, you hardly see negative Judo, blocking or passivity, the tactic changes straight away knowing that the first Shido means out of contest. After have been testing over 4.000 fights, here you may see some key points with surprising but excellent results:
Please note how the fight during the extra time gets another tone when the average of victories by scoring is of 80% when only 20% are won by penalties. The extra time is now fixed with the same time than a normal fight but only for technical reasons; the electronic scoreboards are easy to reset and restart the fight again but it would take some time if the timer should be readjusted and the idea is not to make any break between the initial fight and the extended time. We are still collecting opinions and documents in order to decide if in a near future, the extra time can be shorter and not necessarily up to 4/5 minutes. Some opinions point to 3 minutes would be time enough for scoring, but this needs to be discussed at all levels and agreed. In anyhow, figures above mentioned clearly show that the Golden Score doesn't delay the Ch's any significant time when we talk about 12 minutes extra used per day, but by the contrary makes very happy all competitors when they are only depending on themselves and not on third opinions. Furthermore, a modern and Olympic sport (although respecting our Judo principles), the mass media, spectators and all do not understand how an Olympic medal may be awarded by means of flags, people simply don't understand that and we must be aware of it. My intention will be to make the proposal of introducing the GOLDEN SCORE world wide.
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