What, When, Who, & How Are Points Being Scored At 57kg: Part 1, What Is Scoring

My goal in this series of articles is to run through the 2019 World Championships in its entirety and see who, what, how, and when points are scored at the highest level of the sport. I’m going to start with the most meaningful rounds of the tournament: the quarters, semis, repechage, and medal rounds. This will give me the ability to look at how trends present themselves in different weight classes. Once I get a good collection of data from each weight class I’ll go back and add in the round of 16, round of 32, and the qualification round. The questions that I hope to answer in this series are as follows:

What - What tech and what position is scoring the most?

Who - What athletes from what countries are using which tech to score?

When - What technique works in what rounds?

How - Which setups, and which ties are being used to get to the scoring tech and which finishes are used the most?

Total Points Scored - 89

There were 89 points scored in the meaningful rounds of the tournament that includes neutral offense, neutral defense, par terre, step-outs, and cautions. 

Neutral Offense - 48 Points

The lightweights were all about offense as more than 50 percent of all points scored occurred when attacking. As you may have guessed, a majority of those 48 points were attributed to single-leg attacks. 

Single-Leg Numbers

Thirty-six points were scored on single-leg attacks.

• 16 Points were scored on single legs with the head on the inside. 
• 20 Points were scored on single legs with the head on the outside
• 6 Points were scored on low-level leg attacks (attacking below the knee)
• 30 Points were scored on mid-level leg attacks (attacking the leg anywhere from the knee to the hip)

What other offense scored?

Doubles - 4 points

Only four points were attributed to double legs in the meaningful rounds of 57kg, both of which were hit by India’s Ravi in the bronze-medal match. 

Upper-Level Attack - 8 Points

These attacks score without touching the legs, and while that may sound like these guys are bombing people with big throws the break down is mostly seatbelt/wizzer position and one underhook throw-by by Uguev. 

Neutral Defense - 14 Points

8 of those points came from fully defending their opponent’s shot for a takedown

4 points came from non-controlled exposure due to their opponent’s shot. 

2 came from a crazy scramble in the finals where Uguev hit a pancake against Atli that changed the complexion of that match completely. Watch it below. 

Par Terre - 11 Points

I included reversals into this category, because I guess, technically, if you are scoring after your opponent has scored non-controlled exposure it’s coming from the par terre position. What is more interesting than that is if I didn’t count those reversal points then the only par terre points that were scored in the meaningful rounds of 57kg were scored by Uguev of RUS when he rattled off four straight turns against Atli in the finals. 

Tomorrow we’re going to take a closer look at just how most of those neutral offense points were scored. For example, what sets or ties were used, if any? And what finishes were used to secure the takedown.