Judo high level competition injuries

the aim of this study was to investigate the injury profile of male and female athletes competing at high level. We analyzed videos of 124 matches, fought by 83 different judoka, during 4 of the most important international judo competitions (interna tional tournaments 2006 and 2007) of all weight categories. We catalogued the injuries by type, level of severity (including the “minor injury” considered by iJF rules) and anatomical region. among 124 fights analysed, we identified 27 injury incidents for 24 athletes (28.9% of the judoka observed). the 55.5% of the injury incidents was soft level of severity, 33.3% medium level and 11.1% serious level. We found that the most common type of injury was musculoskeletal stress to the fingers, and the most common mechanism of injury was during the standing fight when a competitor is being thrown.