is a retired

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese female

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

ka and a politician. Competing in the extra-lightweight (48 kg) class, she won a record seven world titles and five Olympic medals including two golds at

Sydney 2000 The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

and

Athens 2004 The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

. After her retirement, the

International Judo Federation The International Judo Federation (IJF) was founded in July 1951. The IJF was originally composed of judo federations from Europe and Argentina. Countries from four continents were affiliated over the next ten years. Today the IJF has 200 National ...

named her "best female judoka ever". In 2010, she was elected to the

House of Councillors The is the upper house of the National Diet of Japan. The House of Representatives is the lower house. The House of Councillors is the successor to the pre-war House of Peers. If the two houses disagree on matters of the budget, treaties, ...

, the upper house of the Japanese parliament.

Early and personal life

Ryoko Tamura was born in

Higashi-ku, Fukuoka is one of the seven Wards of Japan, wards of Fukuoka in Japan. As of 1 March 2012, it has a population of 296,576, with 136,133 households and an area of 66.68 km2. Its name literally means "east ward". Kashii, Japan, Kashii is in this ...

on September 6, 1975. She started judo at the age of seven. She studied literature at

Teikyo University is a private university headquartered in the Itabashi ward of Tokyo, Japan. It was established in 1931 as Teikyo Commercial High School (帝京商業高等学校). It became Teikyo University in 1966. It is part of Teikyo Group, a multinational ...

and joined

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

in 1998. In 2003, she married

Yoshitomo Tani Yoshitomo Tani (谷佳知, born February 9, 1973) is a former Japanese professional baseball player from Higashiōsaka, Osaka, Japan. He played as an outfielder for the Orix Buffaloes and Yomiuri Giants. He holds the Pacific League record for hi ...

, an Olympian and professional baseball player then with

Orix BlueWave , styled as ORIX, is a Japanese diversified financial services group headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, and Osaka, Japan. ORIX offers leasing, lending, rentals, life insurance, real estate financing and development, venture capital, investment an ...

. The wedding reception reportedly cost $3 million. The couple has two sons, born in 2005 and 2009.

Sporting career

Standing at , Tani fought in the extra-lightweight (48 kg) division her whole career and, unlike many of her opponents, she never had to cut weight before a competition. Her first major title was at the 1990 Fukuoka International Women's Judo Championships, a tournament she went on to win 13 years in a row. In 1993, she won her first world title and received her fourth dan. She went on to win the biennial world championships in 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2007. She did not compete in 2005 as she was expecting her first child. This record seven wins was only beaten by French judoka

Teddy Riner Teddy Pierre-Marie Riner (, ; born 7 April 1989) is a French judoka. He has won ten World Championships gold medals, the first and only judoka (male or female) to do so, and three Olympic gold medals (two individual, one team). He has also won ...

in 2015, in an era when world championships had become annual events. She competed in five Olympic Games and won as many medals. At

Barcelona 1992 The 1992 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1992, ca, Jocs Olímpics d'estiu de 1992), officially known as the Games of the XXV Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XXV Olimpiada, ca, Jocs de la XXV Olimpíada) and commonly known as ...

, aged only 16 years old, she defeated in the semi-final veteran British fighter and 4-time world champion Karen Briggs, but she lost the final by a small margin against the reigning world champion, Cécile Nowak of France. This was followed by a 4-year, 84-match winning streak that led her to her second Olympic final at

Atlanta 1996 The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

. Tani was the clear favorite against the relatively unknown North-Korean Kye Sun Hui, but she was unable to live up to the expectations. Kye resisted all her attacks and scored an advantage towards the end of the fight. Tani's second Olympic silver was a huge setback, and the Japanese media talked of an "Olympic curse". Reflecting on this years later, Tani said, "there was never a curse … in 1992, I was 16, I was lacking experience … in 1996, I was 20". After 1996, she remained unbeaten for 12 years. At Sydney 2000, she had a tough semi-final against North Korea's

Cha Hyon-hyang Cha Hyon-Hyang (born 3 October 1979) is a Koreans, Korean former judoka who competed in the 2000 Summer Olympics. References

1979 births Living people North Korean female judoka Olympic judoka for North Korea Judoka at the 2000 Summer Ol ...

, but she left no chance to her opponent in the final, Lyubov Bruletova of Russia. After only 36 seconds, Tani delivered an uchi mata (inner-thigh throw) and was awarded an

ippon is the highest score a fighter can achieve in a Japanese martial arts ''ippon-wazari'' contest, usually kendo, judo, karate or jujitsu. In Judo In Judo, an ippon may be scored for a throw, a pin, a choke or a jointlock. For throws, the four ...

and the gold metal. Four years later in Athens, she scored a series of ippon-victories to reach the final, in which she dominated France's Frédérique Jossinet, taking an early koka lead that she confirmed with a

waza-ari is the second highest score a fighter can achieve in a Japanese martial arts ''ippon'' or ''waza-ari'' contest, usually judo, karate or jujutsu. ''Waza-ari'' in judo A ''waza-ari'' is the second highest score a fighter can achieve in judo, the ...

in the last seconds of the fight. She was the first woman judoka to win two Olympic golds. In Beijing in 2008, she saw her hopes of a third-straight gold evaporate when judges awarded penalty points to Romania's

Alina Dumitru Alina Dumitru (; born 30 August 1982) is a Romanian judoka, one-time Olympic champion and eight-time European champion. At the 2008 Summer Olympics she defeated Japanese double gold medallist Ryoko Tani, who until then had been undefeated in ma ...

after both competitors failed to show much aggression. Looking stunned, Tani fought desperately after the final controversial penalty call, but with only seconds left she had no time to mount an attack. She defeated Russia's Lyudmila Bogdanova for bronze. She retired from competition in 2010. In a career spanning around 20 years, she was only defeated 5 times. In 2011, the

named her "best female judoka ever" at its 60th anniversary gala in Paris.

Selection controversy

Tani lost the 2007 All-Japan Weight Class Judo Championship, which doubles as the qualifier for Olympics and the World Championships on those years when the events take place, but was selected as Japan's representative anyway by the All Japan Judo Federation (AJJF). She then won the gold medal in the Rio de Janeiro World Championships. Tani lost the All-Japan again in April 2008, to 21-year-old Emi Yamagishi. Again, the AJJF selected Tani for Japan's team in place of Yamagishi. The AJJF refused to answer questions about Tani's selection after the decision, but later said that Tani was selected because "She is especially strong against international opponents". The selection prompted Philip Brasor, media commentator for the

Japan Times ''The Japan Times'' is Japan's largest and oldest English-language daily newspaper. It is published by , a subsidiary of News2u Holdings, Inc.. It is headquartered in the in Kioicho, Chiyoda, Tokyo. History ''The Japan Times'' was launched by ...

to ask "...maybe Tani is the better choice, but why have qualifying bouts in the first place?". The AJFF uses qualifying bouts as only one criterion considered for selection, with performance in international events as another.

Popularity and legacy

Tani followed in the footsteps of

Kaori Yamaguchi is a retired judoka. Yamaguchi won the All-Japan Judo Championships 10 consecutive times from 1978–1987 (twice in the -50 kg division, seven times in the -52 kg division) and won her first medal at the 1980 World Judo Cha ...

, who in 1984 had become the first Japanese woman to ever win a world championship – the sport had long been a male preserve. Yamaguchi was the inspiration for the character of Yawara Inokuma, the heroine of

Naoki Urasawa is a Japanese manga artist and musician. He has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously. The stories to many of these were co-written in collaboration with his ...

's popular manga and anime series ''

Yawara! ''Yawara!'' (also stylized as ''YAWARA!'') is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. It was serialized in ''Big Comic Spirits'' from 1986 to 1993, with the chapters collected into 29 ''tankōbon'' volumes by pu ...

'' who prepares for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. When Tani represented Japan in Barcelona, she was viewed by the Japanese public as a real-life Yawara and was soon nicknamed Yawara-chan or Tawara. Thanks to her success and cheerful personality, Tani grew immensely popular in Japan. She appeared in numerous TV commercials and her wedding ceremony, broadcast live on Japanese television, was followed by 20 million spectators. The birth of her first child also became a major press event, with camera crews waiting for the first glimpse of her emergence from the hospital. The characters of Ryoko Izumo and Ryoko Kano from the ''

World Heroes is a series of four fighting games created originally by ADK with assistance from SNK for the Neo Geo family of arcade and home consoles. Over the years, the games have been ported to various non-SNK platforms as well including the Super NE ...

'' and ''

Fighter's History is a series of fighting games that were produced by Data East during the 1990s. The original ''Fighter's History'' was first released for the arcades in 1993 and ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994. Two different sequels ...

'' fighting video games series, respectively, were both loosely based on her. Tani is credited for the boom in women's judo witnessed by Japan in the 1990s, leading to the rise of a new generation of competitors. Because she did not let her marriage put an end to her sporting career, and won her last world title as a young mother, she is also viewed as a symbol of the changing role of women in Japanese society.

Political career

Tani was introduced to politics by Ichiro Ozawa. On May 10, 2010 the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

announced that she would represent the party as a proportional candidate in the Summer 2010 House of Councillors election. Tani initially stated that she still intended to pursue her judo career, but she eventually retired from judo after she won the seat in question. In July 2012, she left the Democratic Party for the newly created and short-lived

People's Life First was a short-lived political party in Japan. It had 37 out of the 480 seats in the House of Representatives, and 12 in the 242-member House of Councillors. On 28 November 2012, the party merged into Governor of Shiga Yukiko Kada's Japan Future Par ...

. Later that same year, she was one of the founding members of the

People's Life Party The was a list of political parties in Japan, political party in Japan that merged with the Democratic Party for the People on 26 April 2019. It had 2 out of the 475 seats in the House of Representatives (Japan), House of Representatives, and 3 ...

, alongside her mentor Ichiro Ozawa. Tani was approached by several parties in the lead up to the July 2016 election, but Ozawa demanded she remain with the party, as her defection would have meant the party fell below the minimum requirement of five Diet members and lost its official party status. In June 2016 Tani announced her decision to remain with the party until the election, but not seek a second term.

References

External links

*
Ryoko Tani official page

International Olympic Committee

Videos of Ryoko Tani
(judovision.org) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tani, Ryoko 1975 births Living people Japanese female judoka Olympic judoka of Japan Olympic gold medalists for Japan Olympic silver medalists for Japan Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Judoka at the 1992 Summer Olympics Judoka at the 1996 Summer Olympics Judoka at the 2000 Summer Olympics Judoka at the 2004 Summer Olympics Judoka at the 2008 Summer Olympics Toyota people Japanese sportsperson-politicians Female members of the House of Councillors (Japan) Members of the House of Councillors (Japan) Democratic Party of Japan politicians Sportspeople from Fukuoka (city) Olympic medalists in judo Asian Games medalists in judo Medalists at the 2008 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2004 Summer Olympics People's Life Party politicians Judoka at the 1994 Asian Games Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Asian Games gold medalists for Japan Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon Medalists at the 1994 Asian Games Universiade medalists in judo Universiade gold medalists for Japan Medalists at the 1995 Summer Universiade