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Journalist/developer. Storytelling developer @ USA Today Network. Builder of @HomicideWatch. Sinophile for fun. Past: @frontlinepbs @WBUR, @NPR, @NewsHour.
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In 2025 so far across 48 open tournaments, the IBJJF has given out approximately 25,000 (9,300 gold, 7,357 silver and 8,324 bronze) medals to juvenile, adult, and masters competitors, which surely you have noticed all over Facebook and Instagram. What you might not see though, is that more than a third (8,312) of those medals were given when the participant either had no matches (default gold) or lost their only match (default silver or bronze).
Now, I’m not here to de-merit the guy who posts about getting silver in a two-man division. This is just a data project illustrating where all the medals are going.
There are a lot of default medals in the masters divisions.
74 percent of all default medals were awarded in the masters categories, where divisions tend to be smaller.
More than a quarter of all masters division gold medals were single person divisions or divisions where two competitors signed up but only one showed up. 39 percent of masters silver medals were awarded for losing one match, and half of all masters bronze medals were awarded for losing one match.
By sheer numbers, black belts are picking up the most default medals.
One way of looking at the data is by raw numbers, although this might also approximate division sizes. There simply are not that many masters 4, 5 or 6 female athletes, so they naturally didn’t collect as many default medals. Generally, there is a tendency of more default golds in the black belt divisions, where there are usually also more athletes.
Female athletes are getting more default golds.
Another way to slice the data is by percentage. So, of all the gold medals earned this year so far, what percentage of them were snagged without a match taking place? Women in almost every category were more likely to stay in single athlete divisions or show up to a two person division where the other athlete no-showed.
There are just a lot of medals out there.
For a little perspective, every IBJJF tournament offers registration across 95 adult divisions and 665 masters divisions. You can do this math on your own — 9 and 10 weight divisions for female and male athletes (including open class) x 7 age divisions (adult, masters 1-7) x 5 belt color levels (white through black). Not every division has participants, but that’s a maximum of 760 divisions x 4 medals per division, or up to 3040 medals per tournament.
In reality, a major tournament like the IBJJF Europeans handed out around 2,000 medals. A regular IBJJF open tournament (Atlanta Winter, Virginia Summer, etc) might hand out on average around 500 medals.
In any given open, we’re looking at around an average of 50 default gold medals, and another 130 silver and bronze medals that were won without winning a match.
Why would anyone collect a default gold medal anyway?
There are a couple logistical reasons someone might show up for their free medal.
In the colored belts, being on the podium qualifies you for open class, where you can get more matches.
A gold medal earns your 27 points for your weight division and 40.5 points for your overall IBJJF ranking, which affects your seeding at future tournaments.
At adult black belt, you need those points to qualify for Pans and Worlds
That being said, the IBJJF offers a full refund if you’re alone in your division by check day, so you have to do the personal math if the above reasons are worth your 130-170 USD registration fee. Plus, Instagram clout!
If you want to earn gold by winning, you’ll probably have to win two matches.
When we take a look at the distribution of gold medals this year, most of them were won after one or two matches. In bigger divisions at open tournaments, some will require three wins (up to 8 people in the bracket) but rarely more than that.
A lot more people sign up for grand slam tournaments, and a big one like Pans might be the first time a competitor has to shift from winning two matches to winning three or four matches to win. Adult male colored belt divisions might have to win up to six matches for gold, and many of the masters male black belt divisions have to win up to five. One lucky guy in adult male blue feather fought a record (this year) of seven matches in his division to win gold at Europeans.
This might have implications on how you train for a major tournament. Even if an athlete can win multiple opens taking out one or two opponents at a time, they’ll need double the mental and physical grit to do it against three to five opponents on the same day at a major.
About the data
Thanks to Will Weisser and IBJJF Elo Rankings for providing the match data for this project. IBJJFRankings.com ranks competitors and provides a comprehensive database of matches in events run by the International Braziliation Jiu-Jitsu Federation. It is an independent site and are not affiliated with the IBJJF.
Support my work
These articles take me an average of 10 to 12 hours to analyze data, make charts, and write. If you would like to support me, please check out my jiujitsu sticker shop.
There was something about Houston Landing that never quite made sense.
It was a large digital startup in a city already served by the Houston Chronicle, whose corporate owner, Hearst, enjoys a reputation for strong journalism. It attracted a stunning amount of philanthropic funding — $20 million — before its launch two years ago, and somehow managed to burn through much of it. It was beset by tumult after its second CEO, veteran journalist Peter Bhatia, fired the Landing’s editor-in-chief, its top investigative reporter and, later, another top editor for reasons that have never been fully explained.
And on Tuesday, the Landing reached the end of the line, announcing that it would close because, despite “significant seed funding, it has been unable to build additional revenue streams to support ongoing operations.” The site will shut down in May, and 43 employees will lose their jobs.
Bhatia agreed to come on our “What Works” podcast last June after he emailed me to complain about something I’d written. My co-host, Ellen Clegg, and I found him to be charming, as candid as he could be when talking about internal personnel matters, and dedicated to creating a first-rate news outlet.
When I asked him about competing with the Chronicle, he emphasized that he didn’t see that as the Landing’s mission.
“There is so much opportunity to do journalism here,” he said. “And the people who founded Houston Landing and who ultimately recruited me here wanted more journalism for this vast community. They wanted journalism that was hard-hitting and performed traditional watchdog and accountability roles, but also to create a new kind of journalism, if you will, that is accessible to traditionally undercovered communities, which make up such a huge percentage of the population here.”
As for the firings of editor-in-chief Mizanur Rahman, investigative reporter Alex Stuckey and editor John Tedesco, Bhatia said: “I came in here after things were established and in place, and I gave things a year to develop and go in the right direction. I have nothing but respect for the people that you mentioned. They are good human beings and fantastic journalists, but we were on a path that was not sustainable, and as the leader, I felt I had to make changes in order to get us in a position to be successful for the long term.”
In any case, the people Bhatia brought in, editor-in-chief Manny García and managing editor Angel Rodriguez, are well-regarded journalists. Unfortunately, they’re also now out of work.
Columbia Journalism Review editor Sewell Chan, who had an opportunity to watch Houston Landing up close during his own stint as editor of The Texas Tribune, has written a nuanced and perceptive take on what went wrong. “In hindsight, money was both a blessing and a curse for the Landing,” Chan writes, observing that the leadership team may have been tempted by that early bonanza to spend beyond its means.
“The Landing also suffered from a lack of focus,” Chan adds, explaining that it was never clear whether its mission was to cover the city or the broader region; whether it saw itself as a traditional news outlet holding the powerful to account or if, instead, it sought to empower the community by providing them with the tools to be their own storytellers, like Documenters or Outlier. Chan also delivers this verdict on Bhatia:
I’ve known Bhatia for close to thirty years. The son of an Indian father, he has been a pioneering Asian American newsroom leader and has the utmost integrity. However, Bhatia had not run a digital-only operation, hadn’t worked extensively in nonprofit fundraising, and didn’t know Houston well.
Bhatia, in his farewell message, writes:
We are immensely proud of the work we’ve done and the impact we’ve made. Houston Landing has shown what’s possible when a news team commits itself to truth and transparency. Our stories highlighted voices that too often go unheard, sparked conversations that matter and helped inspire positive change throughout the city we love.
It’s a shame. Houston may not have been a news desert before the Landing landed, but more coverage is always better, and the focus on underrepresented communities that Bhatia talked about with Ellen and me will not be easy to replace.
It’s important, too, to recognize that what happened at the Landing says little about the nonprofit news movement in general. Chan quotes Michael Ouimette, chief investment officer of the American Journalism Project (one of the Landing’s funders), as saying that the closing is “not part of a broader trend,” and that nonprofit local news outlets remain on a growth trajectory.
Indeed, many of the nonprofits that Ellen and I track have proved to be remarkably resilient, with a few about to embark on their third decade. Unfortunately, Houston Landing will not join that charmed circle, and will instead close just a little more than two years after it was launched amid a wave of optimism.
In a colorful commentary for the Los Angeles Times, Matt K. Lewis argued that callousness is a central feature of the second Trump administration, particularly its policies of deportation and bureaucratic cutbacks. “Once you normalize cruelty,” Lewis concluded in the piece, “the hammer eventually swings for everyone. Even the ones who thought they were swinging it.”
Lewis’ word wasn’t the last, however. As they have with opinion pieces the past several weeks, Times online readers had the option to click on a button labeled “Insights,” which judged the column politically as “center-left.” Then it offers an AI-generated synopsis — a CliffsNotes version of the column — and a similarly-produced opposing viewpoint.
One dissenting argument reads: “Restricting birthright citizenship and refugee admissions is framed as correcting alleged exploitation of immigration loopholes, with proponents arguing these steps protect American workers and resources.”
The feature symbolizes changes to opinion coverage ordered over the past six months by Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who’s said he wants the famously liberal opinion pages to reflect different points of view. Critics accuse him of trying to curry favor with President Donald Trump.
Publisher says he doesn’t want an “echo chamber”
Soon-Shiong, a medical innovator who bought the Times in 2018, blocked his newspaper from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president last fall and said he wanted to overhaul its editorial board, which is responsible for researching and writing Times editorials.
“If you just have the one side, it’s just going to be an echo chamber,” Soon-Shiong told Fox News last fall. He said broadening the outlook is “going to be risky and it’s going to be difficult. I’m going to take a lot of heat, which I already am, but I come from the position that it’s really important that all voices be heard.”
Three of the six people who researched and wrote Times editorials, including editorials editor Mariel Garza, resigned in protest after the Harris non-endorsement. The other three have since left with the last holdout, Carla Hall, exiting after writing a last column that ran March 30 about homeless people she met while covering the issue. Soon-Shiong’s decision caused a similar unrest with subscribers as happened when Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos decided the newspaper would not back a presidential candidate.
The Times used to run unsigned editorials — reflecting a newspaper’s institutional opinion — six days a week. The paper lists only two editorial board members, Soon-Shiong and executive editor Terry Tang. They’re usually too busy to write editorials. Soon-Shiong has said he will appoint new board members, but it’s unclear when.
He also said he was seeking more conservative or moderate columnists to appear in the paper. Lewis, a self-described Reagan Republican who just began as a columnist, believes he’s part of that effort. Soon-Shiong has also brought up CNN commentator Scott Jennings, a Republican consultant who has already contributed columns for a few years.
Los Angeles Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning was asked recently about editorial policy, but reportedly lost her job in a round of layoffs before she could answer. There has been no reply to other attempts at seeking comment from Times management, including how readers are responding to “Insights.”
There were some initial questions about whether a “bias meter” as described by Soon-Shiong would apply to news articles as well as opinion pieces. But the publisher told Times reporter James Rainey in December it would only be included on commentary, as it has remained since “Insights” was introduced to readers on March 3.
A gimmick that insults the intelligence of readers?
In practice, the idea feels like a gimmick, Garza, the former editorials editor, said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I think it could be offensive both to readers ... and the writers themselves who object to being categorized in simple and not necessarily helpful terms,” she said. “The idea of having a bias meter just in and of itself is kind of an insult to intelligence and I’ve always thought that the readers of the opinion page were really smart.”
The online feature created problems instantly when it was applied to columnist Gustavo Arellano’s piece about the little-noticed 100th anniversary of a Ku Klux Klan rally that drew more than 20,000 people to a park in Anaheim, California.
One of the AI-generated “Insights” said that “local historical accounts occasionally frame the 1920s Klan as a product of ‘white Protestant culture’ responding to societal changes rather than an explicitly hate-driven movement.” Another said that “critics argue that focusing on past Klan influence distracts from Anaheim’s identity as a diverse city.”
Some at the Times believe an ensuing backlash — Times defends Klan! — was inaccurate and overblown. Still, the perspectives were removed.
Often, “Insights” have the flat, bloodless tone of early AI. After contributor David Helvarg’s column about potential cuts to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the opposing viewpoint noted that Trump supporters “say it aligns with broader efforts to shrink government and eliminate programs deemed nonessential.”
A better way to improve opinion offerings is to hire more journalists and put them to work, said Paul Thornton, former letters editor for the Times’ opinion section.
Media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued in The Guardian that Soon-Shiong talks about promoting viewpoint diversity but really wants to push the newspaper toward Trump. “His bias meter should — quickly — go the way of hot type, the manual typewriter and the dodo,” Sullivan wrote.
Soon-Shiong, in his interview with Rainey, dismissed claims that he was scared of Trump or trying to appease him. People need to respect different opinions, he said. “It’s really important for us (to) heal the nation,” he said. “We’ve got to stop being so polarized.”
A writer amused by the label attached to him
One writer who doesn’t mind “Insights” is Lewis — with one caveat.
“I like it,” he said. “I didn’t know what to expect but I was pretty pleasantly surprised. It does provide additional context for the reader. It provides counterpoints, but I think they’re very fair counterpoints.”
Lewis, who once worked for Tucker Carlson’s “Daily Caller,” was amused to see “Insights” judge his most recent column as “center-left.” He figured it was because he was critical of Trump. Instead, Lewis said it points to the relative meaninglessness of such labels.
“I guess I’m a center-left columnist,” he said. “At least for a week.”
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
Krentzman Quad on Northeastern’s Boston campus. Recent federal funding cuts and freezes by the Trump administration impacted Northeastern’s research on various topics.
Professors, students, Bostonians — we all benefit from our universities in the realm of higher education today, but our institutions are doomed to fall unless we fight for them.
You may be healthy today because of treatment at a Boston hospital relying on research funded by the National Institutes of Health. You may love and care for the New England coastal and oceanic ecosystems, which research funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helps to protect. You may even rely on our National Science Foundation-funded cybersecurity research to protect your personal data without even knowing it.
As professors at Northeastern University, we are members of the same community. Faculty speak at community events, including “Meet a Scientist” at the Boston Museum of Science. We watch the same Red Sox games and drink the same iced coffee. Our students turn out by the hundreds to scream their lungs out for every runner racing from Hopkinton to Boston on Patriots Day. We are your neighbors, and you are our family.
As members of the Northeastern community, you need to know that we — and our institutions — are under attack. Federal funding cuts and freezes have halted our work on topics from generative artificial intelligence to cancer research simply because the grants contain terms such as “women,” “socioeconomic” or “discrimination.” The dismantling of the Department of Education threatens financial aid like Pell Grants, which provide vital pathways to unlocking the American dream for many students. The most vulnerable now live in daily terror from the Trump administration’s merciless targeting of immigrants and transgender Americans.
Beyond these immediate impacts, attacks by the Trump administration pose an existential threat to universities, communities and American democracy itself. Even top private universities struggle to produce world-changing research without federal funding. Corporate funding will not save us, because it can take decades to develop the revolutionary Ozempic drug from the exploratory research on Gila monster venom.
Most university leaders have remained silent amid these attacks. Innovation relies on university research, however, industry leaders haven’t spoken up. Universities are essential to our community, however, political leaders say little.
Many university leaders nationwide believe that we can survive by complying to reduce the impact of cuts or by staying silent to avoid becoming a priority target. This blatantly ignores the immigrant and transgender students who are afraid for their safety, worrying their university will not protect them. This ignores the faculty whose research has already been made impossible merely because it mentions a now-banned phrase. It ignores the irreparable loss of reputation when our universities sacrifice fundamentally American values like freedom of speech. We must work together to ensure this doesn’t happen here at Northeastern.
We must learn from the fate of Columbia University. We must learn that no amount of appeasement will satisfy Donald Trump’s regime. Columbia’s administration believed they could save their institution by obeying his anti-American demands, from banning face masks and shuttering departments to allowing political commissars to dictate university policy. Now, Columbia will continue to exist in name only, a mere shadow of its former self.
If we do not learn from Columbia, then the Trump administration will come for our institutions one by one, and each of our universities will fall prey to the same attack. Our leaders’ silence may temporarily delay the inevitable, but it also enables it tenfold. To borrow a phrase from the flags flown by America’s founders, now is the time for our universities to “join or die.” Together, the universities and communities of New England are one of the most powerful coalitions in the world.
Even when legal protection is beyond their capability, the words of our leaders absolutely matter; Tufts University President Sunil Kumar’s “Declaration for Rümeysa Öztürk” shows us that. Freedom of speech is one of our most fundamental civil rights in America. The powerful speech of legal residents including Rümeysa Öztürk, Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung and others seems to be enough for the Trump administration to violate their rights of due process in attempts to make them “disappear.” Powerful speech must then also be enough to threaten the Trump administration’s attempts to erode our democratic institutions.
Therefore, we ask the Northeastern and Boston community to join us in calling on our university, industry and political leaders to stand together. We must acknowledge the unfolding crisis, resolve to protect our most vulnerable community members and mutually pledge to fight for our country’s research, our country’s education and our foundational American freedoms.
Boston doesn’t bow to kings. Our universities are worth fighting for.
Kylie Ariel Bemis, Rahul Bhargava, Alexandra To, Richard Daynard, Rachel Rosenbloom and Laura Edelson are Northeastern professors. You can reach them at <a href="mailto:k.bemis@northeastern.edu">k.bemis@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:bhargava.rah@northeastern.edu">bhargava.rah@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:a.to@northeastern.edu">a.to@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:r.daynard@northeastern.edu">r.daynard@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:R.Rosenbloom@northeastern.edu">R.Rosenbloom@northeastern.edu</a>, <a href="mailto:l.edelson@northeastern.edu">l.edelson@northeastern.edu</a>.
About the Contributor
Jessica Xing is a fourth-year graphic design major with a minor in journalism. This will be her fourth semester as photo editor, after having served as deputy photo editor and design editor. She is excited to continue working with photographers to create dynamic and engaging photos for The News in her final semester. You can follow her on Instagram @jessx.photo.