Neil Adams
speaker
376 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2024
last heard Apr 2024
Neil Adams’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
They sent me to the European Championships senior at 17. Wow. And that doesn't happen very often. And I fought, I pulled Nevzorov. So I fought Nevzorov and I had him really worried, you know, because he expected without a doubt to come out, throw this kid, you know, and junior. Yeah.
There's a picture of him in his judogi and his judogi is just cut. And he looks the business. And there's me in this baggy, skinny kid inside this baggy thing. And the thing was is that the more he tried and the harder he tried and the more he panicked. the further it went away from him. And so, of course, he got the decision at the end and deservedly, but I worried him.
And so for me, that was a massive step forward because a year later, I was starting to fill out. And two years later, I was competing for the Olympic title. So-
Just ripped them out of the ground. And I was saying to Nikki, my wife, and she said, what would you do now – It was different than the way you did then. I never had any pickups. That's not what we did. But you have a look at the young Ukrainians or the young Russians or the young Eastern Bloc Mongolians, and they're ripping people out the ground.
I mean, it's just different style of judo, and it just looks different. But now they're starting to do traditional style judo as well.
And of course, In 1990, we saw the introduction of all these Eastern Bloc countries. There were so many more. I mean, it was Soviet Union when I was competing. And then, of course, in 1990, everything changed. And then there were so many more of them out there, different countries, that their wrestling styles were introduced into judo. Put a jacket on them and let's get into judo.
And then you get, you know, the wrestlers and the leg picks and the double legs, single legs, double legs. And, you know, and it kind of, by 1995, you know, judo was bent over. And so it was the IOC that went to IJF, International Judo Federation. And they said, you got to change this or we're just going to have one wrestling style. It looks like wrestling with judo, with judo jackets on.
So you either change it or we're going to take one of you out.
throws and uh dynamic judo and exciting stuff to watch right win by judo not not by wrestling and i think that you know the ones that were shouting about it were the wrestlers right because they they like to compete with both they like they want to do both they want to do you know their wrestling matches and and then come into judo so basically i mean what what we've said is
Then learn to do judo and there's nothing stopping you then from doing both, right? But not from the other way around. All right. So rules always dictate development. They'll always dictate which direction it goes. So if you introduce a rule that states that you cannot dive at the legs and just pick up, then... you'll have to do it standing up.
And also it increases the possibility of defense with the hips because actually, um, good defense judo wise standing up is with the hips as opposed to sticking your arms out and then sticking your backsides out there just to defend. All right. So if you attack me and I, I, I move my body in the wrong place. So I'm in the right, wrong place at the right time. So you don't hit the right target.
And then also I use my hips to You know, so again, it's a form of judo that was being lost. So now we got it back.
I think, you know, when you say it is a way of life, I mean, I think the great advantage that we have in judo, my young grandson, so I got two little boys. that are three and a half years of age, love going to our dojo. They love it, you know? So dojo was the first word that they used. It was one of the first.
So when they come to see us, you know, so to see my wife and I, you know, it's like dojo. It's not grandma, granddad, you know, it's a dojo. So dojo, they take their shoes off going into the dojo. You know, so they have respect for where they're at, you know, and I think it has that kind of feeling that like I tried to build my dojo with a feeling of reverence.
It's kind of almost peaceful, you know, so if I'm not religious, I'm not a religious person, but I like going to old churches because when I go into an old church, it doesn't matter, you know, what the religion within the church, but there's a reverence in there.
And respect, you know. Yeah, respect. Look at the respect. You know, we were just talking about it just before we came on air. We were just saying that we very, very seldom do we have a situation where there is animosity involved. other than them fighting. So I'm not saying that they don't fight each other because sometimes it does turn into a brawl.
And at the end, two people bow off and show their respect. And one of the things, so a champion, I see people winning events and they're good judoka or they're excellent. They win world championships, might even win the Olympic Games. But a great champion for me is, is somebody who does the right thing when they lose. So when you see them lose, that's when you see the true them.
And actually, that was one of the biggest things that I had to really cope with. So when I lost that Olympic Games in Moscow and also the one in Los Angeles, the hardest thing is when the microphone's in there and you've got to... be respectful and nice and the hardest thing is to smile. But actually... Some of the great champions, you know, they'll go, well, it's just one match.
You know, I remember we've got one great champion, Agbegnenou. She's a five-time world champion, she's an Olympic champion. She's favourite as well to get this Olympic gold medal, French. What a great champion she is, you know, because she lost one of the matches. I mean, she'd come back and she'd given birth, come back after giving birth.
And everybody was going, well, was she, you know, and then she lost one of the matches on the way through. And she said, well, don't be upset. You know, it's just one match. It's just one contest. You know, next time I'm going to put it right. And she did put it right. And now she's back up there and she won the world title back. So, you know, these are great champions for me.
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