Word: judo
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Jimmy Pedro remembers vividly the first time he found himself second in a judo match, which is to say, the loser. "I didn't know how to deal with a loss; it was like someone shot me. I remember lying on the mat until my father came out and picked me off the floor." He was 11, but he had won a national junior-judo title every year since...
...That's not at all surprising. Although judo has been part of the Olympics since 1964--nearly 200 countries participate worldwide--in the U.S. it often gets lost in the mishmash of martial-arts schools that teach everything from karate to karaoke. Pedro, 29, the son of a judo instructor, lives in Lawrence, Mass., and competes for the New York Athletic Club, but spends much of his time training in Europe and Japan. "The competition is there," he says. "In France they have 600,000 players actively competing. In the States we have maybe...
...1980s almost out of desperation, when crude-oil prices had collapsed, natural-gas deregulation had thrown that market into chaos, and the Peruvian government had just nationalized Enron's offshore properties. Figuring they might as well leverage deregulation instead of succumbing to it--call it business judo--Skilling, a McKinsey & Co. consultant at the time, came up with a plan called the Gas Bank, to buy up reserves of natural gas, then package them for sale, with various prices and conditions for different customers. When electricity markets deregulated a few years ago, the company did the same...
...Judo is a sport that requires explosive strength and general overall quickness, as well as a mastery of throws and kicks. Pedro's training is a combination of Olympic weight lifting, such as the clean and jerk, and 400-m sprints for endurance. To claim gold, he will have to win six matches...
...Sydney, Pedro and his teammates (including potential medalists Jason Morris, a 1992 silver winner at 81 kg [178 lbs.], Brian Olson at 90 kg [198 lbs.] and Hillary Wolf in the women's 52 kg [115 lbs.]) will be dealing with two distinct judo styles. The traditional Asian approach emphasizes speed and balance in order to knock the other judoka over. "With the Japanese and the Koreans there'll be a lot of space. It's a free-flowing, let's-see-who-can-throw-the-other-guy type of thing," says Pedro...