Born on 30 October 1970 in Danvers, Massachusetts (USA), James ‘Jimmy’ Pedro has been a key figure in American judo for the past four decades. A consistent performer at major events – World Champion in the U73kg category in 1999, third at the Atlanta and Athens Olympics (after coming out of retirement for almost three years following his fifth place at the Sydney Olympics), third at the 1991 and 1995 World Championships (fifth in 1993, retired in 1997 due to a serious knee injury suffered a week before D-Day), Three-time winner of the Pan-American Games, this man of challenges and goals has also been the architect, as coach, of the latest golden generation in US judo, that of Kayla Harrison, World champion and double Olympic champion, Ronda Rousey and Marti Malloy, Olympic and World medallists, and Travis Stevens, Olympic medallist.
In August 2012 and again in August 2016, we ritualised two hours on the phone to take stock of the past Olympics from a 360-degree angle, and each time it was as twilight – due to the time difference – as it was inspiring. It was a rare moment of decompression for this master of mental conditioning and stand-up liaison, on deck twenty-four hours a day, as he recounts in this interview. But it’s also a privileged moment for any journalist who wants to understand the lifeblood of a discipline in this North American hemisphere whose history, full of blind spots, deserves to be better known. At a time when the United States is supposed to be slowly building up its strength to meet « its » Californian counterpart for the 2028 Olympic Games, it seemed appropriate to ask Jimmy to tell us about judo in his country as he lives it and hopes for it, three and a half years away from Los Angeles. As always, the man in question went there with all the candour and legitimacy that the milestones, the hectolitres of sweat and the countless medals around his and his athletes’s necks would allow. And if the result is as painful to read as it is inspiring to contemplate, it’s because the intention here was never to dwell on the finger, but on the moon in his sights, from which nothing and no one has ever distracted him. – JudoAKD#031.
A French version of this interview is available here.
We haven’t seen you on the tour since Kayla Harrison’s second Olympic title, if I’m not mistaken. Why did you retire?
After Kayla and Travis finished competing in Rio 2016, we had a new CEO, Keith Bryant, who came to United States Judo. I met with Keith and Ed Liddie, who was the Performance Director, and sat down with them and told them that we were looking at a whole new team. We no longer had the superstars like Kayla Harrison, Travis Stevens, Marti Malloy, etc., and we were going to have to do things differently for the next decade.
What did you mean by that?
What I meant was that, firstly, the IJF circuit had become very, very professional over that period of time and that required a coach to devote full time to running a program and taking the team to international competitions. So first of all I wanted to be paid. I wanted a coaching salary to be able to do this job full-time and travel the world to train the next generation.
What did they answer?
The answer was that they didn’t have the money. There was no money for coaching at that time and they couldn’t afford to hire a coach. So I said, well, if you can’t afford to hire a full-time professional then we have no chance of winning in the future. So that was the first nail in the coffin.
I see… And what was the second?
The second part of the equation was that I told them that we had to change the way we fought and the way we trained, and that we had to set new standards to better develop our next generation of athletes. In other words, we shouldn’t allow athletes to travel around the world just to win points on the world judo circuit and have people who barely place in our national championships competing at the Grand Slam in Paris, the Grand Slam in Tokyo and so on. We had to look at the budget and change things so that we could spend our money more wisely and develop the next generation of champions. So I set up a whole tiered structure of how athletes would qualify for the World Championships, the Grand Slams, the Grand Prix and so on.
Did your counterparts agree with this approach?
No.
How did you react?
We disagreed on the direction the country should take and when the federation refused to pay for a full-time coach, I took note. And I resigned as head coach of the US Judo program.
OK, now I get it… And what have you been doing since then?
I’ve put a lot of time, energy and effort into my businesses. I currently own a brand called Fuji Sports, and I’ve also started a new business called Fuji Mats. Since 2016, we have grown these businesses exponentially. We are now a global brand. We sponsor the European Judo Union with Fuji Mats. We are the number one seller of judo and jiu-jitsu kimonos in the world, and in the US for jiu-jitsu under the Fuji Sports brand.
Are you working alone on this project?
No. I’ve hired a lot of people. I’ve recruited a lot of black belts in jiu-jitsu, judo, NCAA wrestling champions, MMA athletes, and we’ve built a really solid company where we design complete martial arts facilities. We do everything from mats to wall protectors, boxing rings, MMA cages, full facility design services, as well as outfitting all these centres with the judogis, gear, rash guards, boxing gloves and shin guards they need to compete. So I’m in the equipment business and I’m growing, using my entrepreneurial spirit. And we’ve really become a global brand, including in France where we’re developing a key partnership and you should be hearing about our Fuji Sports and Fuji Mats brands in the next decade. And I’m very excited about that. So that’s where I’m spending most of my time at the moment.
But you’re not staying away from the tatamis, are you?
Of course I am. I also continue to train my team. I have a team in Boston. We have something called Project Gold, which is a non-profit organisation to help develop my own group of athletes. So I’m kind of a private club now. I train with Travis Stevens. We also have Kelita Zupancic (now Kelita Stevens) who helps out in the dojo. My dad is also involved.
How many people are involved?
We have a good group of about ten to fifteen black belts between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two who are just starting to come on the scene. One of them is Johan Silot. He’s U81kg. He comes from my program. He’s just won gold at the European Open in Serbia. He just finished second in Montreal in November. He’s someone to watch for 2028… And I’ve got a couple of other guys at U66kg and U73kg who are starting to move up. They’re only seventeen or eighteen, but they could be ready for Los Angeles. Nothing is certain yet, but we’re definitely getting private sponsors to support our program. We’re running a team and we’re starting to travel around the world.
Where are you planning to go?
The only places I’ve been on the world circuit recently have been a couple of European junior events. I went to the Junior World Championships in Portugal last year and I took our team to the UK and a couple of European Junior Cups last year. It’s basically a hobby for me. I do it on the side. I do it because I love it and I want to see these young people succeed. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last eight years of my life.
Let’s get back to the US team. During our long phone call after Rio, you told me that with the retirements of Kayla, Marti and Travis, it would be difficult to have a new generation like this one. And you were right: American judokas didn’t win a medal at either Tokyo 2021 or Paris 2024. Now we’re starting the Olympic cycle in LA. Where does American judo stand at this point?
Well, to be honest, it’s a mess. There really is no plan for the US team for the LA 2028 Olympics.
There isn’t?
Really. I pushed the organisation a couple of years ago to start thinking about LA 2028, but they said they wanted to wait until after Paris. So unfortunately we’re very, very late at the moment. And to be honest, the whole federation is struggling with itself and with its members. Until February it was run by Robert Eriksson, the former coach of the Swedish team. He started to do a good job with the training centre, but unfortunately he was isolated. He had no direction. He wasn’t connected to the high performance department in any meaningful way, which meant that he was running around the country like a private club, trying to train a few athletes like myself, and everything was very fragmented.
Why was that?
As I said, they still don’t have money for coaches in the US. After a decade of telling them that they needed a professional coach, that they needed to hire people to do the job full time, they still haven’t found the money to hire coaches in America. So all we get are volunteers who go on the road. Anyone who can make the trip goes. Athletes can sign up at will. As long as you’ve won a medal at a Pan American Open, you can compete anywhere in the world, including Grand Slams and Grand Prix events. You don’t even have to have placed in our Nationals. You just have to medal in a Continental Open, which is ridiculous. But the athletes run around, do their thing, have fun, post pictures on Instagram…
So there’s no national coach at the moment…
There is no official national coach at either senior or junior level, no.
So how does it all work?
Basically it’s club coaches who volunteer to go away. We have about one national training camp a year in the United States. They have no plan for 2028. They have an even smaller budget than before, and to be honest, it’s looking pretty bad for any projections for LA 2028. So things are pretty complicated in America at the moment.
And what about you?
Like I said, I’m trying to raise funds for my own group and I’ll have a couple of athletes following me and my development plan and I’m hoping to have one or two athletes ready for LA 2028. But it’s all done outside the system and outside the federation and unfortunately that’s the way it is… So you would think that with the Olympics coming to America, it should be a very exciting time. But if we don’t do something significant in the next few years, I’m afraid judo will disappear in America. It won’t be anywhere.
…
For my part, another thing I am doing is promoting judo programs in schools. I started a company called Judo Today. I’ve teamed up with Israel Hernandez and a guy from Florida called Hector Lans and we’re trying to get judo into high schools here in America. The teachers will be paid a full-time salary, somewhere between $45,000 and $75,000 a year to teach judo full-time in schools. And we’re trying to bring in foreign coaches to run these programs for us.
What a challenge!
At the moment we are having difficulties in the United States because we don’t have qualified coaches to do the job, especially in South Florida where this program is starting in the Miami area. We have about sixty high schools that would like to hire a coach and add judo to their programs, but we don’t have a mechanism to qualify or train our coaches at the moment.
Apart from that, you were recently one of the few people asked by the IJF to give ideas and suggestions for the new rules. What has judo lost over the years and through the changes? What do you think needs to be improved? I suppose there’s a fine line between tradition, spirit and attractiveness…
I actually had the luxury of being in Paris for the 2024 Olympics as a guest of the IJF and it was an incredible experience for me. It was something very, very special. But in terms of the rules, I was very disappointed with the judo competition and the way the athletes were winning at the Olympics. I was there specifically for the U73kg category and the U81kg category. And what I saw was so many bouts won by shido and/or hansoku make. And you had all these good judokas who were afraid to attack because they didn’t want their heads to touch the mat. And those who took the risk and tried to throw their opponent and hit his head ended up losing the fight. So I think it was a great tragedy. You know, specifically, I think Hashimoto won one fight, I think it was against the Mongolian who almost threw him but was disqualified. So after seeing so many fights being won just by penalties and tactics and no real judo, I actually expressed my opinion to the IJF. I spoke to Vlad Marinescu and a few others and let them know that I think serious rule changes need to be made if we want to keep this sport popular and easy to understand. And really the emphasis has to be on positive judo.
What do you mean by that?
You know, the ability to throw your opponent, the ability to immobilise them, the ability to submit them by taking victories away from athletes who are doing positive judo, but who, for example, get caught inside the round when they’re turning someone over or they’re about to win the fight by submission and ippon. The fights are stopped and they get a penalty like shido for accidentally grabbing inside the round when they’re about to go for a submission. I mean, I understand that safety is important in the sport, but you know, we need to change the rules to allow for good, positive judo instead of just being negative and punishing people for the smallest infractions. And I think some of the rule changes are great.
Do you have any in particular in mind?
You know, I’ve never liked the penalty for leaving the mat. I think in wrestling right now at the Olympics, you can push someone out and you get a point. That’s not positive wrestling. And I think judo was going in the same direction where it wasn’t positive. It was just an ability to beat your opponent with a little technicality instead of beating them with judo. Ultimately, I think we want our champions to represent the highest level of the sport with technique, the highest level of the sport with submissions, and to be able to deal with a self-defence situation. And the only way to do that is to develop pure judo. So I think the new rules are excellent. We should only give the off the mat penalty to those who step off the mat voluntarily.
Another chapter. I was in Montpellier, France, at the end of December for the Champions League. You fought for TSV Abensberg in Germany, didn’t you? Was that an opportunity to gain more experience, surrounded by top athletes?
Anthony, when I played for TSV Abensberg, those were the best years of my life. First of all, the team was fantastic. We had the best athletes in the world fighting for that team from all over the world. We had Indrek Pertelson from Estonia. We had Nuno Delgado from Portugal. We had Pedro Suarez from Portugal. We even had Ilias Iliadis fighting for the team. We just had the best team and the best environment you could ask for. So it was a pleasure to be part of that experience. I fought with them from 1995 to 2004 and during that time we won a number of national titles. We won the European title several times. I fought against Makarov. I fought Quellmalz several times, some of the French like Daniel Fernandes… In short, against a lot of top athletes and for me it was an excellent way to keep my judo sharp.
How did you fit it into your career at the time?
The TSV team paid for my flight, all my expenses and of course they paid me when I fought. So I used it as training. It allowed me to go to Europe cheaply. It allowed me to fight at a high level, one fight, two fights, sometimes three or four fights in a weekend. But in the meantime I stayed in Germany to train with all the top athletes and that gave me the opportunity to stay sharp and also spend more time in Europe training with the Europeans.
The best time of your life, as you just said…
Yes, I made the most of it. It was a fantastic opportunity. I created a brotherhood with all these people. There were other athletes like Patrick Reiter from Austria who was in my team. It’s been crazy over the years. Oscar Peñas and Kyoshi Uematsu from Spain, really a lot of guys that we had a great time with. And it was an incredible experience. Otto Kneitinger was the president of the club. He was obviously a big player in the European Judo Union. And, you know, he created a great atmosphere so that everybody could be a great judoka, but also so that we could have a lot of fun in all this team competition. And the goal was good, a high level competition, great training in between, but more importantly to do it in an affordable way. That was my experience with TSV Abensberg.
I also saw Fuji Mats advertising around the mat for the Champions League in Montpellier in December 2024…
Yes. As for Fuji Mats, you know, I’m proud. I founded this company in 2014, right between the London Olympics and the Rio Olympics, with two partners that I was already working with. I worked before and I was vice president of another mat company that I won’t name, but I’m sure you know which one, because they’re also sponsors of the European Judo Union and they’re based in Germany. We sponsored the European Judo Union last year and a couple of years before that, just to get the brand out there in Europe. And in the United States, we have established ourselves as the number one mat company and the number one installation company, equipping gyms for MMA fighters, jiu-jitsu practitioners, judo and karate dojos and so on. So we have created a great business for ourselves and we are proud to give back to the judo community by sponsoring European events.
How did you manage to juggle it all during that time while you were coaching?
I managed the team during that time, yes. I was the head coach of the US national judo team and I was helping to build the Fuji Mats brand at the time. My day was really non-stop. I would wake up super early, at six in the morning. I would start working for the company for a couple of hours. I would train the team in the morning and then work for the company in between. And then in the evening we would have another judo training session. I was working all the time, but it wasn’t really work for me because judo is my passion and martial arts is also my passion. So whatever you do when you love it, whether it’s helping people build gyms or opening their first academy or helping athletes succeed at the highest level, you’re always giving back to the sport. And when you’re giving back to the sport and doing things that you love, I don’t see it as work.
So what is it?
My passion is my job and my job is my passion. It’s what I do. It’s what I love and it’s how I make my living and you know, I was only getting a small salary from United States Judo for being the head coach, so it was important to me to feed my family, to have something else that was making money. And we quickly became the number one brand in this field, designing and equipping academies and gyms all over the world.
How far?
Today we have customers in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, all over Europe, all over Australia, the United States and South America. And we’ve quickly become, I think, the brand of choice for experts in the field. We’ve developed spring floor systems to make falls safer. We’ve developed bespoke bag rack systems with trolleys that can help save space. We work with companies to develop collapsible boxing rings, collapsible cages, so that you can maximise the space in your facility so that if you need to take it out for training, you can. Otherwise you’ve got a nice mat space to train on when you’re not boxing or training.
Great journey!
Yeah, I’m proud of what I’ve created. We have two really strong brands in Fuji Sports and Fuji Mats and I’m proud to be the CEO of them.
In terms of results, the situation you describe is pretty terrible. Especially for guys of your generation or the one before like Mike Swain, Jason Morris or Brian Olson, who have managed to medal at world level despite their relative isolation, as well as those of the generation you have been coaching for years. I saw Jonathan Yang’s fifth place in the U60kg category at the last Junior World Championships. Will he have the shoulders to carry most of the national expectations until LA 2028? What could allow him to continue to grow and gain experience during this Olympic cycle?
This is a really difficult question because the situation in the United States is really terrible. We have no continuity in the programs, which means that the national team does not train together except maybe once or twice a year for a weekend – and even then it is more for form’s sake than anything else. There is no continuity, which means that the coaches they bring to these camps are not the same people who travel around the world with the team.
With this lack of an official head coach for the judo team that you mentioned…
There is neither a head coach for the junior national team nor a head coach for the cadet national team. And all the athletes train on their own in different dojos. They don’t have to train in a training centre. They only come together to select their own tournaments. Each athlete travels around the world and selects the tournaments he or she wants to participate in.
So for example Jack Yonezuka and his father, they decide, hey Jack, you’re going to all these tournaments. They don’t know who the coach will be. Sometimes they come without a coach. Sometimes there is a coach. They don’t know in advance who the coach is going to be. They just choose their tournaments. And every athlete in the country has to meet very minimal criteria and they can go anywhere in the world for Grand Prix, Grand Slams, training, whatever. They’re on their own.
Do you have a budget for this?
There is some funding from the United States Olympic Committee and United States Judo, yes, but I’ve heard that for this quadrennial, for these four years, our budget has been cut almost in half.
What does that mean financially?
It means we’ve lost about $200,000 in our budget this year. So that’s going to affect the athletes for sure… Also, I don’t see a national coach coming up. I hope they do. There’s a new board that came in on the 1st of January and I was hoping that one of the first things they would do is get a new head coach for the national team, that they would start to rally the troops and get these kids on a program. Because even though they have training camps, the coach that’s randomly selected to go to these camps is teaching the skills that he’s learned, which is good for the kids. It’s good for the cadets and the juniors to see these new skills, to be exposed to them and maybe they’ll pick them up. But for the senior national team, they should already have most of the skills they need.
What happened to the 1st January deadline you just mentioned?
The new board is in trouble with the National Olympic and Paralympic Committee. They have until the end of February to find common ground or USA Judo could even lose its federal status…
Wow… So what do you think they need?
They just need to train hard, they need a program, they need to spend a lot of time with a coach to develop a relationship to be successful at the highest level. They need that professional commitment and they need that program that is set up for them… To say to them: here are all the events that you are going to play. This is what we are going to do as a team and create an environment where we can win together.
Do you see that happening at some point?
No, not yet.
Why not?
Because nobody in the United States wants to make tough decisions and force people to do things that they might not want to do, but that would be better for them in the end.
Who do you think the younger generation should look to?
In terms of the younger generation, we have a lot of young talents. We have Jack Yonezuka, we have Johan Silot at -81kg, we have Didi Rodriguez at -81kg. The Yang brothers are talented, Chris Velasco at -60kg is talented. We have some girls who have potential and talent as well. But without the right professional approach, we’re up against France, we’re up against Japan, we’re up against Russia, we’re up against teams that have a lot of depth, that have a lot of athletes pushing each other to get to the top. And unfortunately our athletes are doing their own thing with their own program without any real coordination and concerted effort to help them maximise their potential and develop properly. And without that good development model, we might have a random kid like Jonathan Yang who wins occasionally. But we’ll never have a team that can perform over time.
So the road to Los Angeles seems like a steep hill to climb…
Yes. I worry that if you go to LA without a full, prepared team, you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. You can’t expect one or two athletes to shine, because if they have a bad draw and they get Japan or France in the first round, they could be eliminated right away. And that could be our best athlete, the one we put all our money on. You saw it yourself with the French team in 2024, they had bench depth from U60kg to O100kg, they had guys who shone and they were professionally trained, they were prepared to win, it was tough fights for everyone and they lived up to it. And I don’t see our young guys living up to that unless they have four years of really hard training on the road in Europe, in Japan, all together as a team chasing that dream and getting tough, getting strong and developing their full potential. Without that, I’m afraid the team won’t do as well in 2028. That’s my opinion.
Is this generation ready to go off on their own for weeks at a time to Japan or anywhere else in the world, as you’ve done many times in your career?
I really don’t think so. I don’t think it works. You know, this generation is not like the previous generation where they’re self-motivated. They grind. They work hard. But more importantly, when you’re on your own, it’s easy for athletes to skip practices or randoris and then not understand why they’re being beaten so hard or why they’re being thrown around.
I remember Kayla Harrison in Düsseldorf in 2015. She won the tournament on Sunday and the next day she was the first one on the mat for the women’s session of the training camp… and she stayed in the stands for the men’s session while the other girls went to their rooms to rest between the two daily sessions. When I asked her why she stayed, she said that she’d had so few opportunities to see top-level judo that she didn’t want to miss any. And the following year she became Olympic champion for the second time…
That’s exactly what I mean. You know, there are no debriefs, no corrections in their judo. At least when I was travelling, I had a group of athletes who came with me. We helped each other. And on top of that, every time I went to my dojo, my father would make adjustments.
What do you mean by adjustments?
My father would help me by watching videos of all the top athletes. And we would strategise together, all the time. And we would watch videos of my fights. Then I would go abroad and train with these people. I would come back. I would share the feedback. Hey, Dad, when I did this, this is what he did. We would come up with a game plan for each opponent. And we would write it all down in a notebook.
What can we learn from all this?
If you go out on your own, I’m afraid most of our athletes at the moment don’t have the basics. You know, they’re young and talented, but they don’t have the keys to understanding high-level judo. And we don’t have enough competent coaches in the country at the moment, who travel with our team, who have the ability not only to help, but to really lead, to guide, to direct, to change, in short, to help these judoka improve. In any case, I don’t see it. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let people travel around the world alone without supervision. It’s not effective. So I don’t think it’s going to work as it is.
What could reverse this trend?
Again, the biggest lever in American judo right now is money. First of all, they need a lot of money to revive judo in this country and to support a program. Personally, I think they need to set up a national training centre where all the top athletes are required to go, whether they live there full time or they’re required to go there at least one week a month, so that our top athletes can always train together. So that they can be on the same page in terms of technique and the language that the coach speaks – developing a system of holds, developing a system of ground transitions, the cross grip, learning the different styles of holds, learning how to fight left-handed versus right-handed, learning how to fight left-handed versus left-handed, you know – and really develop a skill base that the whole team can understand, be on the same page and ultimately win. And from there, when we become competent as a team, then we can start going overseas and we can start developing athletes, refining, correcting, changing, adapting and most importantly, learning.
So number one is money. What’s number two for you?
Number two is a team of professionals that they need to hire that will be responsible for the development of athletes in this country. And that would be from a senior perspective as well as a junior and cadet level, hiring full-time coaching staffs to recruit talent, bring them to a training centre and help guide, direct and direct them in a professional environment. Everything from their judo training, to their physical preparation, to their diet and nutrition that will turn these athletes into professionals.
That requires a considerable budget…
Yes, it does. Most athletes in this country at the moment don’t train five days a week. They might do judo three or four times a week, most of them. And even some of our girls, by the way, maybe some of them train two or three times a week. There’s no way we’re going to catch up with Japan or France or any of the big nations in this country unless our athletes are doing judo full time, training twice a day, doing judo and incorporating physical training into it. So we don’t have a residential training environment for our athletes. We’re behind in their development. And more importantly, we don’t have the system, we don’t have the staff, we don’t have the money to put it in place. So until we get the money, until we get the staff, and until we get a professional training program in place, we can expect what you see in America, which is random wins here and there, occasional successes because we’ve got an athlete who’s highly motivated, or maybe he’s training overseas, or he’s got a foreign father as a coach, and we’ll have one or two athletes who pop up here and there. But we will never develop a judo system in America until there is a full-time commitment from the organisation and until there is a financial commitment from a sponsor or the federation itself that is going to raise money to support its team.
You were talking about your father, Jim Pedro Sr. Whenever I interviewed Kayla, she always thanked you and him. Maybe you should explain to the younger generations abroad what your father has brought to American judo over the years…
The relationship between my father and Kayla is very similar to a father-daughter relationship. You see, Kayla grew up with a stepfather. She never had a close relationship with a father, and her mother did the best she could, but she left Kayla on my doorstep when she was fifteen. And it was only a week or two after she found out she had been sexually abused by her former coach. So a broken girl came to my house at the age of fifteen or sixteen. She had no money, no family support, she was alone and in a bad state of mind. My father became her surrogate father. He would talk to her openly, tell her the truth, tell her things she didn’t want to hear. He was really a mental coach for her and helped her overcome the trauma she had experienced. That’s why she calls him Big Jim.
Yes, I remember her calling him that way…
I’m Little Jim, he’s Big Jim. Now I’m Jimmy, but he’s still Big Jim. He really became a father figure to her. He spent a lot of time talking to her about life lessons, telling her that what had happened to her was terrible, but that it shouldn’t define her. She shouldn’t stop living or worry about what other people think: « What happened to you was wrong, period. You were a child, a minor, it’s 100% unacceptable. You’re going to press charges against this guy, you’re going to go to court, he’s going to go to jail, and you’re going to move on ». And that’s exactly what she did. My dad gave her some great advice to help her move on. For my part, I supported her in judo, mentally, in training, teaching her to set goals, to dream big, to believe in herself, to train hard to become an invincible woman. Together, my father and I transformed her, both mentally and physically. She was a person who put 100% into everything she did. She would follow our instructions to the letter. If we told her to lift weights at five in the morning, she did it. If we told her to run at eight o’clock, she ran at eight o’clock. A good example of that was in 2010 when she came out of nowhere to win gold at the World Championships in Tokyo. And the next morning, my dad told her, « Get up and go run. I want to see you out there running. I don’t care that you just won the world championship. The goal is the Olympics, and you’re going to set the tone for your opponents and yourself: this is just the beginning. You still have a mountain to climb ». And so she did. She got up and ran, the day after her world title in Tokyo. She always followed the plan, listened and knew how to adapt.
I remember because that day in Tokyo was the first time I interviewed her – thanks to you, who introduced us. And three weeks later, when most of the judokas who had fought in Tokyo were on holiday, she wrote to tell me that she was in Uzbekistan for a « small » World Cup. And I said to myself: « She’s only twenty years old. She’s a world champion. She’s different. »
Exactly. She knew how to develop her judo when it was necessary, and my father and I played a big role in her transformation. We are very proud of her. She’s like family to us. This autumn, her children spent Thanksgiving with my wife and I. Kayla slept over, her children slept over, and we spent time together as a family. We decorated the tree, put up the lights, ate, laughed, played games… That’s what it’s all about: building bonds, making connections. My dad really is like a father to her, and she’s always grateful for that. And most importantly, neither my dad nor I have ever taken a penny from Kayla. We’ve never charged her anything. We’ve never shared in her financial success. Sure, the IJF gives the athlete and the coach a little bit of money, and my dad and I always shared that, but it was peanuts compared to what she’s done in her career, what she’s made in the UFC and the PFL. Today, she’s a multimillionaire. And that is the result of her hard work, the direction she has taken, and most importantly, a testament to the strong woman she truly is.
If Jimmy from 2025 could give one piece of advice to Jimmy who started judo at the age of five, what would it be?
That’s a great question. Honestly, I would tell him to do exactly what I did. I believe that the best thing you can do for a person is to get them involved in judo and teach them to give 100% to becoming a champion. Because in the end, whether you become a champion or not, the lessons you learn through judo will help you succeed in life. And I really believe that. I am a pure product of judo. Thanks to this sport, I have travelled all over the world, making friends and discovering different cultures. I have had ups and downs in my career, successes and failures. And that is what judo is all about.
That’s what Jigoro Kano wanted…
Exactly. Kano wanted people to give 100% effort and 100% of themselves in the pursuit of excellence, in the mastery of their craft. And he knew that along the way they would be defeated, that they would have to overcome obstacles, that they would have to manoeuvre and figure out how to succeed. And he never wanted anyone to give up. As long as you have an ounce of energy left, if you haven’t given 100%, you’ll never succeed if you give up. So keep going, keep trying, keep learning, keep improving.
It’s a struggle…
It’s a struggle and it’s a climb to the top. And I really believe that this struggle has helped me to become a resilient person. There’s nothing in the world that I don’t think I can do. I have confidence in myself. I believe I can work harder than others. I can perform at a high level. I can get up and speak in front of people. I have this indomitable spirit that Judo has created. And I would tell myself when I was five years old: Even if you don’t like it, even if you want to give up, even if it’s hard, keep going, find a way, keep going, keep going. Because the only way to succeed is to give 100%. And that’s what I’ve done in my career. That’s what I embody and that’s what I pass on to all my students. Travis Stevens is a good example. Kayla Harrison is a great example. You know, Marti Malloy, Ronda Rousey, they were committed to excellence and they hated to lose. They hated it so much that they wanted to win. And they took it personally, but they always went back to training and they always got better and they always found a way. And all of these athletes had serious injuries that they had to overcome.
Most people only see champions when they are successful…
That’s what I mean. They don’t see them when they fail. And what people need to understand is that all champions have hard times, all champions get beaten, all champions get hurt, they have injuries, they have obstacles to overcome. You only see them when they succeed. And they succeeded because they never gave up, they never quit, they persevered, they kept going and they never gave up on their dream. And I think that’s the story of many great champions, whether it’s Lukas Krpalek, whether it’s Miklos Ungvari, we all have the same judo spirit. And that’s what I love about this sport: it becomes a brotherhood. So, to come back to your question, I would say that judo is the best thing that has ever happened to you. You stick with it until the end, you pursue your goals and your dreams, and in the end you become a better person.
Is there anything you would have done differently?
Looking back, there’s one thing, yes. I wish I had kept my kids in judo longer. I think about my son AJ, he became a very successful wrestler in the United States. He came second in the national wrestling championships. He went to college and he wrestled. But I can tell you one thing, with the work ethic that kid has, he’s twenty-five, twenty-six years old now. With his work ethic and his ability to compete and train and perform, if he had stayed in judo, he’d probably be our star for 2028 right now because he’d be at his peak. And in 2028 he’d be twenty-eight. The age I was when I won my World title. I regret not keeping him in judo. But it’s hard. When your dad is a star and everybody wants to beat your son and daughter, they get a bit upset that you’re putting them in the sport you’re a champion in. So I think about AJ and I think about my daughter Casey, she loves sports now. Casey, she’s a teacher. She teaches judo to toddlers. She has her own company called Crawl Martial Arts. She started a toddler program that’s going all over the country now and the jiu-jitsu people are doing it in their clubs and the judokas are teaching judo to the toddlers. I’m proud of her for that. She has a black belt in judo. She continues to train, doing jiu-jitsu and judo. She recently went to Japan on an exchange program and she absolutely loved it.
You have family connections in Japan, right?
Yes, we do. My daughter’s grandmother was born in Okinawa, so she had the opportunity to go back to her ancestral land and she even saw my picture at the Kodokan. She had an incredible trip. It’s true that I wish I had kept all my children in judo longer, because I know it would have made them better, and I think as a result we might have two top athletes with the name Pedro… But I can’t turn back time. I was forced into this sport and I didn’t realise what it would get me in the end and I didn’t want to force my kids into it. I did it when they were little, but in high school when they wanted to change sports and try something else, I let them. I regret a little today that I did not force them to continue with judo, because I think that in the end they would have learnt what I learnt from this sport, which is that it is the best thing you can do for a person, and I really believe that.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
The last thing I would say about judo is that it creates lifelong bonds with people. You know, whether it’s the father being the coach and the son being the student, like it was with my father and I, we had an incredibly close relationship through judo where he was my mentor, my coach, my trainer. He really pushed me, he wanted the best for me. He spent so much time helping me review my videos, he spent so much money taking me to competitions and training camps that we became best friends through the relationship and the dynamic of judo… The same thing with my kids. I created a bond with all my children that tried to live up to my expectations and I remember all the days I took them to judo training, teaching them the sport that I love and having that lifelong bond with them as well. Even though they didn’t go on to compete internationally, we still have those childhood memories and memories of the sport. It brings the family together.
I consider Marius Vizer a friend and a mentor. He’s someone who has been very important for the development of judo. I consider all my teammates in the Olympic team as my close friends, the same goes for everyone I’ve fought in this sport over the generations and years. All the tough fights, all the tough clashes, pushing each other to be the best we can be. We’re all great friends now. We laugh, we joke, we drink, we eat together. We’re all one big happy global family and that’s unique. I have friends from Japan, France, Russia. The judo community breaks down walls. It breaks down barriers. That’s something I really like and it’s unique in our sport: everyone supports each other. Yes, we compete. Yes, we want to win titles, but at the end of the day we are all friends because deep down we all have the same goal, the same dream. And we remember the struggles we have all been through together. And the most important thing is that we all help each other, no matter what happens. No matter where I go in the world, if I ask for help and it is a judoka I know, he will bend over backwards and support me. He will help me and do whatever I need and I will do whatever he needs. And that is a bit of what I am experiencing now in the last part of my life. You know, recently I contacted Nuno Delgado in Portugal to help me organise a successful event in Europe and he did. He and others are some of the people around the world with whom judo has allowed me to develop friendships and relationships for which I am very grateful. That is judo for me. – Interview by Anthony Diao, Autumn 2024-Winter 2025. Photomontage James Pedro Sr: Thomas Eustratiou-Diao. Opening photo: Paco Lozano/JudoAKD.
A French version of this interview is available here.
Bonus – For those who missed it in 2014, this long interview with Jimmy Pedro for Lex Fridman’s Take It Uneasy podcast is a masterclass.
More articles in English:
- JudoAKD#001 – Loïc Pietri – Pardon His French
- JudoAKD#002 – Emmanuelle Payet – This Island Within Herself
- JudoAKD#003 – Laure-Cathy Valente – Lyon, Third Generation
- JudoAKD#004 – Back to Celje
- JudoAKD#005 – Kevin Cao – Where Silences Have the Floor
- JudoAKD#006 – Frédéric Lecanu – Voice on Way
- JudoAKD#008 – Annett Böhm – Life is Lives
- JudoAKD#009 – Abderahmane Diao – Infinity of Destinies
- JudoAKD#010 – Paco Lozano – Eye of the Fighters
- JudoAKD#011 – Hans Van Essen – Mister JudoInside
- JudoAKD#021 – Benjamin Axus – Still Standing
- JudoAKD#022 – Romain Valadier-Picard – The Fire Next Time
- JudoAKD#023 – Andreea Chitu – She Remembers
- JudoAKD#024 – Malin Wilson – Come. See. Conquer.
- JudoAKD#025 – Antoine Valois-Fortier – The Constant Gardener
- JudoAKD#026 – Amandine Buchard – Status and Liberty
- JudoAKD#027 – Norbert Littkopf (1944-2024), by Annett Boehm
- JudoAKD#028 – Raffaele Toniolo – Bardonecchia, with Family
- JudoAKD#029 – Riner, Krpalek, Tasoev – More than Three Men
- JudoAKD#030 – Christa Deguchi and Kyle Reyes – A Thin Red and White Line
- JudoAKD#032 – Christophe Massina – Twenty Years Later
More Replays in English:
- JudoAKDReplay#001 – Pawel Nastula – The Leftover (2017)
- JudoAKDReplay#002 – Gévrise Emane – Turn Lead into Bronze (2020)
- JudoAKDReplay#003 – Lukas Krpalek – The Best Years of a Life (2019)
- JudoAKDReplay#004 – How Did Ezio Become Gamba? (2015)
- JudoAKDReplay#005 – What’s up… Dimitri Dragin? (2016)
- JudoAKDReplay#006 – Travis Stevens – « People forget about medals, only fighters remain » (2016)
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