If you have been following judo at the Olympics you already know that Masae Ueno has won the gold medal in the 70kg division when she defeated Cuba’s Anaysi Hernandez in just 40 seconds and retained the Olympic title she won four years ago in Athens. For those of you who missed it, here is the video clip: all her wins were accomplished with ippon.

(Ippon (一本) is the full point in a judo match which immediately ends it in favor of the scorer. Judo matches without ippon are boring, they’re like soccer matches without goals.)

One comment about this video caught my eye, because the poster said something that I thought too, myself.

一本取った後にもはしゃがずに落ち着いた態度で礼をしているところが素晴らしい。「日本柔道」ですね

Even when she won the ippon she didn’t get excited and it’s wonderful the way she calmly bowed (to her opponent). That is Japanese judo.

Many athletes celebrate ecstatically in front of their opponent, without considering the pain of defeat that their opponent must have been feeling at the moment. But Ueno’s calm demeanor in victory (and her proper bowing) is praiseworthy.

Here’s a timely funny commercial by the very cute Japanese idol Ueto Aya (上戸彩). I like how they throw one another with a winning Ippon, which incidentally doesn’t matter on this particular Judo match — the one who gets to shove an Almond Chocolate on the opponents mouth wins, gets the gold, and gets to eat the chocolate too. After yielding to the temptation, her opponent exclaims “amasuginai!” which means “not so sweet”.