Jack Hodgson

Jack started judo at the age of 7. When he was young he moved around a lot due to being part of a military family and judo was a way to keep some sort of constant at each of the camps. Fast forward a few years and a relative degree of success at pre-cadet and cadet level judo both nationally and abroad, Jack and his parents began to notice changes in his vision. Jack was diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition called ‘retinitis pigmentosa’ or ‘ushers syndrome’ as Jack also suffers from hearing loss.

Before the 2012 Games Jack was barely aware of the existence of Paralympic sport, let alone Paralympic Judo, so to have the Paralympic movement boom around the time he was transitioning into a classified category in his sport was a huge inspiration in terms of continuity in judo!

Since then Jack has not looked back and has moved away from home to train full time with the country’s best Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls at the British Judo National Training Centre. In 2016 he was selected for his first Paralympic Games in Rio and has won both World and European medals.

Jack has had a lot of ups and downs in judo, yet continues to love the path and journey that he and his team-mates are on. Going into Tokyo Jack finds himself currently ranked world number 6 in the world rankings, which is an achievement in itself as the past few years have seen him suffer multiple injuries and setbacks. Despite these setbacks Jack has no regrets about his journey and will continue to be the best he can be in the sport that he loves.