Judo: Japan national women’s team gets 1st female head coach

TOKYO (Kyodo) — Japan’s judo governing body decided on the first female head coach of its women’s national team Wednesday, more than 10 years after accounts of abusive coaching within the team became public.

Maki Tsukada, 42, the women’s 78-kilogram gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics who also took silver four years later in Beijing, will coach the women’s team toward the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, the judo association said during an online board meeting.

The association had been looking for a female leader since news broke in January 2013 that 15 female judoka had submitted documents to the Japanese Olympic Committee claiming they had been victims of physical and verbal abuse.

In Paris, the nation where the sport was born could only manage one gold and one silver in women’s judo, its fewest at an Olympics.

Keiji Suzuki will stay on as head coach of the men’s team.