Judo Trivia
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55 free Judo trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This judo trivia quiz starts with a bullied schoolboy in 1870s Tokyo and ends on an Olympic mat. The history questions cover the jujutsu schools Kanō learned from, the temple where the Kodokan began on twelve mats, the police tournaments that made judo's name, the first black belts ever awarded, the demonstration for Ulysses S. Grant, and Kanō's death at sea on his way home from the IOC. Then the rules and the sport: what ippon means and how long a pin must last, waza-ari and shido, the one joint you may lock, the seven weight classes, blue and white judogi, golden score. The competitors range from Anton Geesink silencing Tokyo in 1964 to Teddy Riner's 154-fight streak, Tadahiro Nomura's three golds, Yasuhiro Yamashita, Ronda Rousey and Kayla Harrison, plus the sambo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Vladimir Putin connections. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on judo, its founder, the Kodokan, the Olympic competition and the individual champions, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. BrainPickle has separate quizzes on karate and on martial arts in general.
30 of 55 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the word 'judo' literally mean?
Gentle way
Gentle way refers to yielding: instead of meeting a stronger attacker's force head-on, a judoka gives way to it and turns that power against him.
Q 02Why did judo's teenage founder first learn to fight?
Bullying
Bullying drove him: small and picked on by classmates, he set out to learn to defend himself, and ended up reinventing the art he was taught.
Q 03From which older Japanese fighting art was judo primarily developed?
Jujutsu (jiu-jitsu)
Jujutsu (jiu-jitsu) had fallen so far out of fashion in westernising Japan that judo's founder struggled to find anyone still willing to teach it.
Q 04What is judo's word for free sparring, which its founder emphasised over pre-arranged forms?
Randori
Randori lets both partners attack and resist for real, which only works because judo's most dangerous moves were removed so throws could be tried at full force without injury.
Q 05Which two things, though present in some kata, are illegal in judo competition?
Strikes and weapons
Strikes and weapons survive only in kata, where partners rehearse set defences against punches, kicks, a dagger, a stick and even a pistol.
Q 06Where did Kanō open his first judo dōjō in 1882?
A Buddhist temple in Tokyo
A Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Eishō-ji, housed the first dōjō, but the school soon outgrew it and moved through several larger halls around the city.
Q 07What does the name of judo's headquarters, the Kodokan, mean?
Place for expounding the way
Place for expounding the way: Kanō chose the name because he saw judo as a path to self-perfection rather than a mere set of fighting techniques.
Q 08In which competitions did Kodokan judoka first make their name by beating the old jujutsu schools?
Tokyo Metropolitan Police tournaments
Tokyo Metropolitan Police tournaments convinced the police to hire Kodokan instructors, and judo became a required subject in police training.
Q 09What are judo's two guiding principles?
Maximum efficiency and mutual welfare
Maximum efficiency and mutual welfare (seiryoku zen'yō, jita kyōei) grew out of Kanō's early motto 'softness overcomes hardness', which he later judged too narrow.
Q 10Which director made his feature debut with Sanshiro Sugata, a 1943 film about a young judo fighter?
Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa filmed a novel whose hero was modelled on Kodokan star Shirō Saigō, and the story has since been remade for film and TV many times.
Q 11What is the highest score in a judo contest, ending it immediately?
Ippon
Ippon ends the contest at once, so a judoka trailing on the scoreboard can still win with a single clean throw.
Q 12Which country won its first Olympic medal of any kind when judoka Majlinda Kelmendi took gold at Rio 2016?
Kosovo
Kosovo was at its first Olympics after joining the IOC in 2014; four years earlier, at London 2012, Kelmendi had fought for Albania.
Q 13What does a judo referee's call of 'osaekomi' announce?
A hold-down begins
A hold-down begins: keep the opponent pinned on their back for 20 seconds and the bout is won outright, while 10 seconds earns a lesser score.
Q 21Rusty Kanokogi lost her 1959 judo medal for being what?
A woman
She was a woman who had entered disguised as a man; the snub drove her to campaign for decades until women's judo reached the Olympics, with Kanokogi herself as the first US coach.
Q 22Which Games first hosted judo's mixed team event, with three men and three women per side?
Tokyo 2020
Tokyo 2020 staged the first mixed team final and the hosts lost it: France beat Japan in the sport's own homeland.
Q 23What is unusual about the medals in each Olympic judo weight class?
Two bronzes
Two bronzes are awarded because beaten quarter-finalists get a second chance through the repechage, so every weight class ends with two separate fights for third place.
Q 14What is a shido?
A penalty for a minor infringement
A penalty for a minor infringement, a shido literally means 'guidance', and a judoka who collects three of them loses the match.
Q 15Which joint is the only one that may be attacked with locks in competitive judo?
The elbow
The elbow is the only joint competitors may lock; leg locks such as ashi-garami were banned from contests long ago but still survive in the Katame-no-kata.
Q 16What are judo's three basic categories of technique?
Throwing, grappling and striking
Throwing, grappling and striking make up the syllabus, yet a beginner's first lessons are breakfalls, because throws can't be practised safely until you know how to land.
Q 17What colour belt may a 10th-dan judoka wear in place of black?
Red
Red is the Kodokan's belt for 9th and 10th dan, and although Kanō set no ceiling on the grades, nobody has ever been promoted beyond 10th.
Q 18Which Tokyo arena, built for judo's Olympic debut in 1964, hosted the Beatles two years later?
Nippon Budokan
Nippon Budokan means 'Japan martial arts hall', and protesters said a pop group would desecrate it, but the Beatles played five shows there and it became a famous concert venue.
Q 19Which US president took judo lessons in the White House from a visiting Kodokan master?
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt trained in a White House room with Yamashita Yoshitsugu, then saw to it that the Kodokan man was hired to teach judo at the US Naval Academy.
Q 20What does a judoka try to break with 'kuzushi', the first stage of every throw?
Balance
The opponent's balance goes first, then the thrower fits in and finishes, which is why an off-balance heavyweight can be toppled with very little strength.
Q 24What two colours of judogi are permitted in official international competition?
White and blue
White and blue became the international standard for television's sake, so viewers could tell the fighters apart; under Japan's domestic rules both judoka still wear white.
Q 25Which French judoka helped light the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron, then won heavyweight gold a week later?
Teddy Riner
Teddy Riner shared the honour with sprinter Marie-José Pérec, then won the +100 kg title in front of his home crowd for his third individual Olympic gold.
Q 26Roughly how many fights in a row did France's heavyweight judo star win before finally losing in 2020?
150
Roughly 150: the streak reached 154 wins over almost ten years and ended in front of his home crowd, when Japan's Kokoro Kageura beat him at the Paris Grand Slam.
Q 27Which Japanese judoka won three straight Olympic golds at -60 kg, in 1996, 2000 and 2004?
Tadahiro Nomura
Tadahiro Nomura needed just 14 seconds to win the Sydney 2000 final. Judo ran in the family: his uncle Toyokazu had been Olympic champion in 1972.
Q 28Which future UFC champion won an Olympic judo bronze medal for the United States in 2008?
Ronda Rousey
Ronda Rousey took her judo into the cage: the armbar that ended most of her fights was a relic of the mat, and she became the UFC's first women's champion.
Q 29Which American won Olympic judo gold at -78 kg in both 2012 and 2016, then a UFC belt?
Kayla Harrison
Kayla Harrison took the bantamweight belt in June 2025, in only her third UFC fight, forcing Julianna Peña to tap to a kimura five seconds before the end of round two.
Q 30Which world leader is a judo black belt who co-wrote a book on the sport?
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin was the International Judo Federation's honorary president until 2022, when it removed him from every post over the invasion of Ukraine.