Olympics
Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer 3y

German judo coach given 'serious official warning' after seen shaking, hitting Olympic athlete Martyna Trajdos

Summer Olympics, Olympic Sports, Judo

German judo coach Claudio Pusa has been given a "serious official warning" after he was seen shaking and hitting athlete Martyna Trajdos before her round-of-32 fight at the Tokyo Olympics.

Footage on social media showed Pusa shaking Trajdos, and then slapping her twice before she took the tatami to face Hungary's Szofi Ozbas.

"The IJF addressed a serious official warning towards the German coach, concerning the bad behaviour he showed during the competition," the IJF said in a statement. "Judo is an educational sport and as such cannot tolerate such behaviour, which goes against the judo moral code."

Trajdos, who lost to Ozbas, took to her Instagram account to defend Pusa. She first posted, "This is what I asked my coach to do! So please don't blame him!! I need this before my fights to be awake."

She later added a further post alongside the video of her coach, which said: "Looks like this was not hard enough. I wish I could have made a different headline today. As I already said, that's the ritual which I chose pre-competition! My coach is just doing what I want him to do to fire me up."

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