JUDO IN RUSSIA

The founder of domestic judo is Vasily Sergeevich Oschepkov (1892–1937). He was born on South Sakhalin, which after the Russo-Japanese War was torn away from Russia in favor of Japan. Involuntarily becoming a subject of the Japanese emperor, Oshchepkov moved to Kyoto, where he studied in the Russian colony. October 29, 1911 was admitted to the famous Institute of Kodokan-judo, June 15, 1913 he was awarded the 1st dan. Oshchepkov was the first Russian and fourth foreigner to receive a master’s degree. On October 4, 1917, Oshchepkov was awarded the 2nd dan, and soon he created his own judo school in Vladivostok. After the establishment of Soviet power in the Far East, Oshchepkov taught the first Soviet militiamen and security officers the basics of battle, while he also served in the headquarters of the Siberian Military District. He was constantly sent abroad, where he did not miss the chance to replenish his arsenal of receptions. Oshchepkov analyzed and supplemented the judo arsenal with techniques from national types of hand-to-hand combat and gradually developed a system that later became known as “sambo”. The term “judo did not suit the governing apparatus of the USSR, and they forgot about it for a long time. In the USSR, judo was discussed only in the early 1960s, when the first world and European championships in this sport began to be held. The USSR Judo Federation was created in 1962 – in the year of the first European Championship. At the 1964 Olympics, the Soviet judo team was formed of sambo athletes who won four bronze medals (A. Bogolyubov, O. Stepanov, A. Kiknadze, P. Chikviladze). The first gold Olympic medal was brought to the Soviet team by Shota Chochishvili in 1972 at the Olympics in Munich. Then in Montreal in 1976 Sergey Novikov and Vladimir Nevzorov became Olympic champions, and in 1980 in Moscow – Nikolai Solodukhin and Shota Khabareli. In Barcelona in 1992, already playing for the CIS team, David Khakhaleshvili and Nazim Huseynov won Olympic gold. Great successes Soviet and Russian athletes achieved by speaking at the World and European Championships. The winners and prize-winners of these competitions are B. Mishchenko, A. Tsyupachenko, G. Verichev, S. Kosorotov, H. Tletseri, N. Ozhegin, S. Kosmynin, B. Varaev and others. At present, the Russian judo school is considered one of the strongest in the world.