The judo mixed-team event makes its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games. In this event, a nation will compete against another, with rounds composed of six individual bouts where each athlete will match up against the corresponding athlete in their weight category. There will be at least 12 different teams participating.

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The winner of each bout will be awarded one point and the minimum score a team will need to progress to the next round will be 4:2. If there is a tie after six matches then a random draw will be made and two competitors from the same weight category will fight to decide the winner.

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The Olympics will see a quarter-final repechage system, with four mixed teams chosen to be the top four based on the June 28 2021 Teams World Ranking List.

The mixed team event will close the Olympic Games. Japan and France will start the event as the favorites. However, the Canadian team won’t be participating in the mixed event.

The three weight categories for the men are 73-kg, 90-kg and +90-kg and the weight categories for the women are 57-kg, 70kg and +70kg. 

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The matches will be single eliminations until the quarter-finals. The loser in the quarter-final will get a chance to compete for a bronze medal. One gold, one silver and two bronze medals will be awarded. 

“We would like to thank Japan for all their support and for the chance to have this event for the first time in Tokyo,” Olympics.com quoted Marius L. Vizer, president of the IJF in 2017 said when it was announced that the judo mixed team event would be part of the Olympic programme for Tokyo 2020.

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“I believe the mixed team event in the Olympics will strongly contribute to the popularity of the Olympic Movement and to the values of the Olympic Games,” he said.

“Judo is an individual sport but it’s also a team sport and this mixed event reinforces the relationship between the individuals in Team France. Especially due to the fact that it’s a mixed competition. It’s even stronger and it allows us to consider Team France as a single entity. To be with men is cool,” said the French 2019 -78kg world champion Madeleine Malonga, as reported by Olympics.com