For each tournament there is a history of the tournament discussing the competition, star players, and changes made over the years to the tournament format, seeding, weight classes, introduction of women, inclusion of an open class, etc. It also discusses changes made by the International Judo Federation to the rules of judo in general that affected the competition at that tournament (i.e. passivity penalty) or any controversies that surrounded the tournament (i.e. boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Olympics). For the Olympic and World Championship chapters it also includes a medal table showing the total number of gold, silver, and bronze medals won by each country over the years.

The Olympic section is the most complete with full round by round results for the entire tournament. The other chapters just show who came in win, place, and show in each weight category. The 1992 Olympic Results (Barcelona) also include a wide range of data about the contests in each weight category such as average length of contests; competitor with most ippons, waza-aris, etc.; shortest contest; percentage of matches won by ippon, waza-aris, etc. You would have to be a real die-hard fan of international judo to want to know most of this stuff.

The reason I bought the book, on the other hand, was for the profiles of the top competitors included in each of the chapters. The players are profiled in the chapters corresponding to the tournament where they had their most notable or dramatic success. So it is kind of arbitrary. Yasuhiro Yamashita is thus profiled in the Olympic section because of his medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Games. But Yamashita kicked ass in every tournament he was in!!! I would have rather had the players profiled by country or by the time period in which they competed. That way it would be easiest to compare rivals.

The profiles themselves are kind of hit and miss and that is why the book gets a mediocre rating. The most appealing thing to me was the techniques used by each player. It is interesting to see that some players have an arsenal of eight or so major techniques while others are only noted for one or two. In particular, the profiles usually discuss any unique technique, variation, or habit of the players. That is one constant in all of the profiles.

But the reason I call the profiles "hit and miss" is because for some players a lot of information is included while for others very little is. For example, I would lay out the following information for each player:

• What weight class(es) did he or she compete in? (Of course you can find this out by looking at the tournament results but some players may have dropped weight for a few years or gone up as they got older but stopped placing.)
• Height?
• Lefty or righty?
• What were their major successes?
• Date of birth?
• What years did they compete actively compete internationally? (Again you can kind of reconstruct this from the tournament results but many players many not have been placing in the top three at the beginning or end of their careers.)
• Hometown? (For most of the Japanese players his or her university is included.)
• Where are they now?

For some players most of this information is there. For others, there is simply little anecdotes about their personal lives and such. One thing you wouldn't expect is a player's overall win-loss record as this information is generally not known, probably even by the player themselves (except Yamashita--every match he had is in a log in the back of The Fighting Spirit of Judo including winning technique--but that is the exception).

Overall, an interesting concept for a judo book just kind of haphazardly done. It is good for the American market where judo results are a bit hard to come by. But nowadays, you can usually find stuff like this on the Internet at the various judo sites.