“Japan is more traditional and macho than Brazil. The men’s team doesn’t have a single woman – well just one, the nutritionist,” Fujii said at Brazil’s national training center in Rio de Janeiro. A similar picture unfolds across much of the rest of the sporting spectrum, where female coaches of elite women are rare and female coaches of men practically non-existent. For example, Brazil briefly had a woman, Emily Lima, coach its female football team but she was fired in 2017 and replaced by a man. The same thing happened in 2015 when Spain sacked its first ever female Davis Cup captain, Gala Leon.
Brazil’s new judo coach, though, is receiving a warm welcome. “Sensei Yuko has made quite a difference. With her as our sensei, our technical level has already improved,” said Ruan Isquierdo, a giant heavyweight member of the Brazilian team, calling his coach by the Japanese honorific roughly meaning “teacher.” “I don’t think, ‘I’m a woman and the others are men.’ I never thought about this. My focus is always: can I use my strengths to help the team?” said Fujii. Her main goal: “For our athletes to do good judo and give everything. We’ll see in the future if I was a pioneer or not!”
Published in Daily Times, July 11th 2018.
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