Four members of the UAE national judo team have landed in Japan for a final training camp, arriving just before the draw that will decide their positions at the 2026 Asian Games. The outcome will set the stage for the team's performance at one of Asia's toughest tournaments.
According to The Asian Affairs, the International Judo Federation has registered 204 judokas from 32 countries for the judo tournament at the 2026 Asian Games.
The Japanese camp is led by Nasser Al Tamimi, who serves as both a National Olympic Committee member and vice president of the federation. The four athletes training there are Simon Constantin (under 60kg), Najad Kazbek (under 73kg), Georgi Albakeev (under 81kg), and Mohamed Omar Marouf (over 100kg), with assistant coach Artur. Their immediate focus is the Asian Games draw, which will assign spots for 15 judo events: seven for men, seven for women, and one mixed team competition.
Meanwhile, six other team members are working under head coach Victor in Georgia, preparing for the World Championships in Baku, scheduled for 4 to 10 October. This group includes Bayan Narmand (under 66kg), Mohamed Bek (under 66kg), Talal Shvili (under 81kg), Dzafar Kosov (under 100kg), and female athletes Bisharat Khroudi (under 52kg) and Eliza Letif (under 78kg). They will move to a final camp in Mintal, Germany, starting 17 September, before heading to Azerbaijan.
Japanese and regional publications confirm that judo is part of the late block of the Asian Games programme, taking place after the opening of the Games. External sources also note that the event schedule remains subject to change, as some timings and details were still marked as provisional at the time of the latest updates.
This kind of scheduling challenge is not new for UAE teams. As reported earlier, other national squads have also had to juggle overlapping events and qualification rounds in pursuit of international results.
With the Asian Games draw about to take place and the World Championships close behind, the UAE judo programme faces a demanding stretch. The federation's choice to split its top athletes between two continents is a calculated risk. If the group in Japan secures good draws and the team in Georgia performs well in Baku, the strategy will pay off. But in elite sport, nothing is guaranteed. The next two weeks will show whether this approach brings the breakthrough the UAE judo community has been working toward, or highlights the limits of dividing a national squad between two major competitions.
