Results at the Pan-American Judo Championships in Montreal.
There are a couple of websites that have the results posted.
Judo Canada http://www.judocanada.org/doc/Results%20-%20Résultats/00000597_Pan-Am%202007.pdf
USA Judo http://www.usjudo.org/2007PanAmDay2FinalResults.asp
Just a reminder that summer is coming and the end of the season’s in sight.
There are two recreational events that we’d like to highlight and encourage you to attend.
Huntsville’s Judo Tournament is bigger and better than ever, with a Development Judo Clinic Sunday June 10th/07.
Our final, and totally new 2007 Junior Olympic Summer Fest Family Event will be in Sudbury, and is a 2 day event.
Included in the fee are all events and seminars, access to a pool, a scavenger hunt and a BBQ to end the day Then on Sunday there’s a group breakfast, then the Shiai itself June 23 & 24/07.
Visit the Judo Ontario website: http://www.judoontario.ca/
Come on out and join the fun!!
Andy Chois just sent these clips of Ron Cheung in Australia! What a hoot! They also seem a little relaxed with the process.
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Some fun photos of a great bunch on a bus!
This is for the communications and geek judoka amongst us!
Yesterday at the Pan Am competition in Montreal we as judoka had the good fortune to use free community wireless at the Pierre Charbonneau sports centre.
It was a great experiment between Ile Sans Fil (ISF) the community wireless group that provided community wireless hotspot and myself here in Ottawa who is developing a community wireless group called Ottawa-Gatineau WiFi (ogWiFi) and the communication of our wonderful sport.
ISF folks (Alexis, Richard & Michael) knew that i was coming to Montreal for the games, so they set it up in such a way, that our (this) blog entries were rss fed to the Charbonneau portal page. So each time I entered an interview or reported on a match it immediately went live on the blog but also directly to that portal page. Meaning, that any person who logged into the ISF wireless community network would get my information feeds.
The experiment went quite well. The Rep. from USA Judo used the system really effectively to send out her press releases, blog entries and stats in real time at the end of matches. She found this to be an excellent way to promote her athletes, keep the sponsors informed, keep friends and family watching from a distance informed and also to provide her association with up to the minute information. She had 2 laptops going at any given time and had her USA Judo National coaches collaborating with her to get the information out. (read the entry on this).
It was also a fun way to conduct interviews, and send out the information while there.
It would have been awesome had JUDO Canada picked up on the opportunity offered them and informed their members as to the resources available at the centre, featured the Canadian athletes that were competing, and use the resource to broadcast results and bring up the profile of the sport a little. As it turned out there was no communication strategy, and they did not mobilize to use this infrastructure. However, Judo Ontario folks are thinking ahead to find ways to include wireless access at their next big events coming up in 2008 in Ottawa and potentially in 2007 at the Hershey Centre.
In future to make this a real show stopper this is what would be required:
a) Adverting to all participants ahead of time that the arena would be wireless
b) The Judo Association should have a good communication strategy
c) Team up an expert with a novice, have the expert watch and state the play by play and the novice type in the data. As a novice i was not able to adequately deconstruct the moves, issues, judging nor did i know who was actualy on the mats.
d) Ensure that the association properly announce who is up and have a roster available online in real time so they be identified.
e) Have the results on a competition tree in real time online somewhere.
f) Find a few members who will actively blog results and content
g) Have dedicated members supply information to the media
h) Have a crew of volunteers out and about interviewing international delegates. yesterday there were some awesome teams from Domincan R., Haiti, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, US, Guatemala etc. but it was not possible for me to get to them. I will post some pictures though!
i) Get some podcasts of the event going.
j) Ensure some locals in the arena have a power supply. There were plugs on the outside walls at the top part of the arena, but I had to run a wire across major circulation areas and almost killed a few people and lost my laptop. I wound up sitting on the stairs in not the best viewing spot as a result. An extension cord with some duct tape would have been an asset. And a spot for people to recharge their camera and laptop batteries on site would also be great.
k) As i am not yet entirelly familiar with the UBUNTU software on my laptop and how it worked with my camera i was a little clumsy and slow and was unable to work as efficiently as i would have liked between all my devices. To do this well, i and others would have to easilty and seameless be able to use their equipment. A little practice before i went would have been good.
l) need to find a way to ensure that the portal page can easily be re-found or re-accessed after log in, and a way to have multiple blogs rss fed through it. In other words, how to ensure that spontaneous blogging on an event can get to the locals portal page and how to make that potential obvious to a user and who on the page management side can make that happen. In this case Alexis made it happen during is work breaks, but that mean a personal connection between me and him. How to do this in a trustworthy way between the CWN and the blogger.
m) This however was a great way to be able to participate in something that I really like, and do some work at the same time.
Overall, it was a great experiment, I learned alot about how to do this effectively and managed to use the experiment as a way to talk to some great people along the way. Below is the portal page with the feed on it. Just click on it and it will take you to the live portal page.
Vivienne Macy is the Grading coordinator for Judo Canada and is here working on the Judo Canada accounts for the tournament here and has been using the free wifi.
The tournament has run smootly with few hiccups. She has been able to check up on all the info sent to her in relation to the tournament and has been able to arrange accomodations directly from the sports centre. She has found it really helpful.
It is good to have access to all the resources your computer information and correspondence online when working at one of these big international events.
(June Takahashi a pioneer in Canadian Judo and Kata expert with Vivienne Macy of Judo Canada)
Amy is working hard against a very heavy woman from the Dominican Republic and she takes the Bronze!
Such a stong match! He just did a most fantastic kneeling kata guruma - ippon of course - for the bronze! Esquisite move against the member of the Hatian team. Accoroding to the fine gents sitting beside me he has had some tricky matches with members of the Brazilian team!
Brian Kalsen from the Ottawa Judo Club is here with Charlie Formosa the President of Judo Ontario are here and lovin’ it!
Aminata est de Varennes et compétionne dans la categorie 52kg!
Je lui parle directement du centre sportif Charbonneau aujourd’hui. Elle a travaillé tres fort mais est déçu car elle est arrivée 5ème. D’après moi c’est quand meme formidable! Pour elle c’etait dure car l’année dernière elle a eu la medaille d’or.
Elle va representer cette été le Canada au Bresil les Jeux Pan Americain et aussi au championnat du monde aussi au Bresil au mois de septembre.
Elle s’entrainne au Clud de Judo de Varennes.
Elle me rassure que ca va être formidable au Bresil et surement il y aura des medailles.