David Stanley, 7th Dan, IJF A and Paralympic Referee has been selected to officiate at his third Paralympic Games as he gets ready to jet off to Rio in September.

The Kent local has been a referee at international level for 27 years with 15 of those as a Visually Impaired (VI) Judo ref. Having refereed at both the Athens and London Paralympic Games, alongside numerous European and World Championships, he brings a wealth of experience to the role.

“I feel very pleased to be selected for the Paralympics in Rio as this will be my third Paralympics for the VI Judo.

“I enjoy refereeing VI judo because the players are very skilled in the art of judo and show a lot of enthusiasm in what they do, under the pressure of lack of sight and in some cases being totally blind and also deaf at the same time.”

However Stanley does admit that refereeing VI Judo does bring its own very specific challenges.

“There are many challenges in refereeing Vi Players, there are the IJF rules and also the IBSA judo rules which are used at the Paralympics, so the referee have to know both set of rules and work with them together.

“This needs the referee to understand and control the VI players by different signals and commands, in the case of deaf players the referee has to understand and perform special sign language.”

The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games start on Wednesday 7 September with the judo competition starting on Thursday 8 September

Want to find out more about VI Judo? https://bja.platform81.com/gb-vi-programme

Want to follow in David’s footsteps? https://bja.platform81.com/refereeing