Garima Chaudhary has clinched the gold medal at the 2016 Commonwealth Judo Championship finals at Port Elizabeth in South Africa. Participating in the 63 kg category, this 26-year-old from Meerut followed up her quarter-final exit from the previous edition of the competition held at Glasgow in 2014 in perfect fashion, winning the event. Garima was the only representative from India to contest for Olympic glory in London 2012 at Judo, where Yoshi Ueno from Japan sent her packing in the first elimination round. She, however, is still touted as a promising Judoka in Inida’s quest for medals at the international stage.

India will be hosting the 2018 Commonwealth Judo Championships in Jaipur, besides organizing the Asian Cadet and Asian Junior Judo Championships in September in Kerala this year.

• Judo, sport of Japanese origin that makes use of the principles of jujitsu, a weaponless system of self-defense.
• Buddhist monks in China, Japan, and Tibet developed jujitsu over a period of 2,000 years as a system of defense that could be used against armed marauders and yet would not be in conflict with their religion.
• Jigoro Kano, a Japanese jujitsu expert, created judo (1882) by modifying or dropping many holds that were too dangerous to be used in competition.
• It depends for success upon the skill of using an opponent’s own weight and strength against him, thus enabling a weak or light individual to overcome a physically superior opponent.