The IJF World Tour will kick off with the Paris Grand Slam on February 7. Paris is usually the first leg of the IJF World Tour but history shows that the opening act of the season has not always been so predictable. In 2016, Havana unexpectedly hosted the first major event with a Grand Prix in the Cuban capital. In 2019 and 2020, it was Tel Aviv that launched the season with a Grand Prix in Israel. More recently, Portugal held the honours in 2022 and 2023, when its Grand Prix became the official starting point of the World Tour.
This year, though, it is Paris once again which leads the World Tour. But before that there are other smaller IJF-ranking events. Africa traditionally opens proceedings with the African Open in Casablanca, which this year begins on January 25. Tunis has also become a familiar early stop, often staged in the second or third weekend of January, offering athletes valuable ranking points and a first competitive test after winter training blocks.
Europe usually follows closely. The European Open in Sofia at the end of January has become a reliable early season destination, particularly for developing athletes and those seeking rhythm before the intensity of Paris. These events do not carry the glamour of a Grand Slam, but they matter. They shape rankings, confidence and selection pathways long before the spotlight fully switches on.
And yet, for many years, there was one event that sat even earlier on the calendar: the IJF World Masters. When the Worlds Masters were introduced in 2010, they made an immediate statement by being staged in mid-January in Suwon, South Korea. The world’s elite were summoned back from their off season with little warning, straight into one of the most selective tournaments in judo. Baku and Almaty followed as hosts, both also in mid-January, reinforcing the idea that the Masters were the grand opening of the season.
The schedule for the Masters later proved to be flexible. Between 2013 and 2015, the event drifted into May. Later, from 2017 to 2019, it was pushed to the end of December, effectively becoming a demanding finale rather than a beginning.
After the disruption of the Covid pandemic, the Masters seemed to search for a home on the calendar. In 2022, it appeared unusually early again, held from January 11 in Doha. The following year, it returned in December in Jerusalem, only to resurface once more in August 2023 in Budapest.
Then, all of a sudden, the World Masters went missing. There was none held in 2024 and 2025. A look at this year’s IJF calendar shows that there’s no World Masters scheduled yet. Will they be slotted in later or perhaps are they gone for good?
(With additional reporting by Hans Van Essen of JudoInside).
