Guillaume Elmont faced three top judokas simultaneously suspended for doping violations two weeks after taking office as director of top sport at the judo association. The former world champion sees no connection between the three cases.
Elmont would have preferred to talk only about the future at his first press conference as judo director on Tuesday. But the 43-year-old from Rotterdam cannot escape the past in a room at Papendal.
On May 18, seventeen days after Elmont started as director of top sport at the judo association, it was announced that Frank de Wit, Michael Korrel and Noël van ‘t End had been suspended after a settlement with the Doping Authority. The three Olympians have made three mistakes in twelve months when passing on their whereabouts.
These so-called whereabouts are necessary for possible doping controls outside of competitions. Three errors with the whereabouts within a year is equivalent to a doping violation.
It does not often happen that Dutch athletes are suspended for violations with whereabouts. That is why it is striking that it now concerns three cases in the same sport. “I think it is a coincidence,” says Elmont. “Because they are all individual cases. Yes, I was shocked. But unfortunately this is also part of it.”
Elmont is cautious about suspensions
Elmont calls the past few weeks “very turbulent”. Furthermore, he is cautious in his statements about the doping suspensions. “As an association, we have nothing to say about it legally and we are not allowed to interfere,” he says. “These are disputes between the Doping Authority and the athletes and we respect that.”
The cases of De Wit, Korrel and Van ‘t End had been ongoing since 2022, but it took a long time before a ruling was made. The trio managed to postpone the procedure over the Games, so that they could participate in Paris last summer.
Michiel van Dijk – the lawyer of De Wit, Korrel and Van ‘t End – was critical of the judo association after the settlement. He believes that the judokas have not been helped enough, especially when they were on two mistakes. “The judo association really needs to wake up now and think: how is this possible?”, Van Dijk told the AD.
According to Elmont, the association is not allowed to be a party in doping cases. “Those are the rules of the game,” he says. “The responsibility for the whereabouts lies at all times with the athlete. And they receive a lot of information about that.”
Heavyweight Jur Spijkers thinks that extra information is not necessary for the Dutch top judokas for the time being. “These suspensions are a wake-up call,” says the European champion of 2022. “I have always been quite sharp with filling in my whereabouts, but I know very well that this is an extra warning.”
Elmont wants to return to the global judo top
The news about the doping violations is in any case not a nice start for Elmont. As the new director of top sport, the world champion of 2005 in the class up to 81 kilos faces a long list of changes that he will have to implement, because last year the Netherlands did not win a single Olympic judo medal at the Games in Paris for the first time in forty years.
Elmont, who worked as a performance coach at Ajax for the past twelve years, is taking his time for the reorganization, but his ultimate goal is clear. “We have to set up a top sport program again with which we can structurally compete with the global top,” he states.
The first step is the World Championships in Budapest (June 13-20). Elmont and the entire judo world will hope that it will then be mainly about performance and medals again.
“Of course, such a message about doping suspensions is annoying for the name of the sport,” says Spijkers. “But we also have to move on. We better have all the noise in one year now, so that it will be ready soon.”
Selection World Judo Championships
Women: Amber Gersjes (-48 kg), Naomi van Krevel (-52 kg), Joanne van Lieshout (-63 kg), Margit de Voogd and Sanne van Dijke (-70 kg), Lieke Derks and Guusje Steenhuis (-78 kg), Marit Kamps and Karen Stevenson (+78 kg).
Men: Emiel Jaring (-60 kg), Mark van Dijk (-90 kg), Simeon Catharina (-100 kg), Jur Spijkers (+100 kg).