DOB - 8 March 1967
COUNTRY - Germany
WEIGHT - U65kg

Favourite Techniques

Tai-Otoshi
Ouchi-Gari
Kouchi-Gari
Hiza-Guruma
De-Ashi Barai
Osoto-Gari
Okuri-Eri-Jime
Hadaka-Jime
Kata-Ha-Jime

Udo Quellmalz is one of the most successful lightweight competitors produced by the West. Between 1989 and 1996 this left handed German -65kg competitor returned from every World Championships and Olympic Games with a medal, culminating in his victory in Atlanta, where his performance was the most dynamic of the 1996 Olympic judo tournament. He subsequently became the head of elite player coaching in Great Britain and then the Austrian Judo Federation. Even though his greatest success came after the fall of the Berlin wall, Quellmalz was a product of the East German sports system. He started judo aged 7 in Leipzig, at age 14 he was spotted by state scouts and enrolled in the Leipzig Children and Youth Sports School, attended by teenagers training in Olympic disciplines. Morning academic work was followed by 4 hours of conditioning and technique training in the afternoons. It was here that he met the most influential coach of his career. Karl-Heinz Deblitz, who oversaw his judo until he left for the West.

Aged 17, Quellmalz was selected for the Cadiz Junior European Championships, an under 21 year old event. He fought his way to the final and came up against Sergei Kosmynin of the Soviet Union. The fight remains his most memorable:

It was a seven minute final. I made the mistake of scoring a yuko in the first 30 seconds. Hecame at me nonstop for six and a half minutes. I stayed ahead but at the end I couldn't even hold my arms up. However, I knew then, having beaten many older fighters, I had thechance to be really good.

In 1989 everything changed for Quellmalz: he had a great World Championships in Yugoslavia, only losing in the final to the home favourite Dragomir Becanovic; the Berlin wall came down; and he moved to the west. He found that training was less rigorous than in the East, but because of the strength of his grounding, and with no risk of over training, he still achieved great results. A quiet. Self motivated fighter, he developed a good relationship with national coach Dietmar Hoetger, and extended his range of techniques.

Quellmalz’s continuous attacking style was backed up with a range of left handed throws. His tokui-waza was left Tai-otoshi, but it was his formidable Ashi-waza, in particular Ko-uchi-gari, that set things up and won him countless contests. Another great strength was his rapid transference into Newaza, and the strangles Okuri-eri-jime, Kata-ha-jime and Hadaka-jime.

His first World Championship victory came in Barcelona in 1991, defeating Okuma of Japan in the final. At the Olympics the following year he came unstuck against the winner, Sampaio of Brazil, losing by chui, but took the bronze. At the European Championships in 1993, he fought the Russian Sergei Kosmynin again and was thrown for ippon with a massive Hiza-guruma. Watching it on the video afterwards Quellmalz was impressed by the beauty of the technique and determined to build it into his repertoire. That year he took a bronze in the World Championships, losing to Switzerland’s Eric Born by split decision, but throwing Jimmy Pedro of the USA for waza-ari with left Osoto-gari. The winner was Japan’s Yukimasa Nakamura, whom Quellmalz met in the 1995 World Championships final in Japan. In the last seconds of the fight Nakamura launched a huge Ko-soto-gari attack, only to be landed flat on his back with Quellmalz’s Ko-uchi-gari counter.

In the Atlanta Games Quellmalz started as favourite, and had a fantastic day, producing a series of great ippons. In the second round he dispatched the dynamic Cuban, Hernandez, with the throw of the tournament, his recently acquired Hiza-guruma. A perfect Tai-otoshi on Belgium’s Philip Latz put him into the final against Nakamura. The fight was very close, with a Ko-uchi-gari kinsa swaying the split decision in Quellmalz’z favour. He remembers his relief as he came off the mat: ‘I threw my jacket away, and thought, that’s it- holiday at last!’

He regards the reason for his success as: 'having some natural talent with good co-ordination, having the right coaches at each different stage of my development, and having personal motivation and confidence on the mat. You can only get real confidence when you’ve done all the training and you’ve got some good results behind you. Then confidence in your own ability becomes the deciding factor.’

You can now learn all of his secrets on the Quellmalz - Olympic Judo DVD released in 2010.