Figure 1.

Shown here is heavyweight champion Teddy Riner in blue at the top and in white at the bottom at the World Championships in Tokyo (2010) and at the World Championships in Astana (2015), respectively. The first called athlete for the fight used to wear the blue judogi and the second called athlete the white judogi. However, starting at the World Championships in 2011 (WC 2011), the first called athlete wears the white judogi. Everything else remained the same. As a consequence, before the switch was introduced seeded athletes (such as Teddy Riner) mostly fought in blue, but are now mostly fighting in white. In addition, before the switch the athlete in blue had on average a longer recovery time between contests and was always to the right relative to the scoring board. After the switch, all this was reversed with now white having on average a longer recovery time and being placed to the right relative to the scoring board. Photo credit: IJF.org (top photo), and Judoinside.com (bottom photo). Reproduced with permission.