Time-Motion Analysis And Decision Making In Female Judo Athletes During Victory Or Defeat At Olympic And Non-Olympic Events: Are Combat Actions Really Unpredictable?

The purpose of the present investigation was to compare decision making and time-motion analysis in female Olympic and non-Olympic judo matches by competitive result (winning versus losing). The sample consisted of 638 judo matches, 518 from non-Olympic events (NO), separated by winning=318 (NOW) and losing=196 (NOL) and 124 from the Olympic Games (OG) separated by winning=60 (OGW) and losing=64 (OGL), contested between 2011 and 2012 by 98 athletes who qualified for the 2012 Olympics Games. The decision making was analyzed using Markov models and combat actions were sequentially analyzed according to frequency of occurrence and time. NOL had lower Gripping frequencies, with a mean of 17.8 +/- 0.3, than all other groups (18.7 +/- 0.6). Frequency of attack to the front and rear orientations were lower for losing athletes in NO events (2.0 +/- 0.1 and 2.2 +/- 0.1, respectively) compared to all other groups (2.3 +/- 3.1 and 2.4 +/- 3.0, respectively).