The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on March 18 that they will be providing 200 Judo uniforms to the Iraqi Judo Federation. Their stated purpose is:

to promote friendship with Iraqi people and to deepen their understanding about Japan and also strengthen their hope toward the future through Judo, which is one of the national sports of Japan that place importance on the spiritual side.

This is in addition to the $91,000 of judo and soccer (football for you non-Americans) equipment that they donated to Iraq just short of one year ago.

Apparently judo has a sizable presence in Iraq, with over 25,000 members in their national judo federation, and it seems that the sport is taken quite seriously there. According to this article on one Iraqi Olympic athlete (in another sport):

Iraq’s judo champion, who will carry the national flag at the opening ceremony, and his coach were once incarcerated in Uday’s private dungeons after performing below expectations.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 20th, 2005 at 5:17 pm and is filed under Current Events, Japan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.