A figure once followed by the brightest lights of the World Judo Tour now moves through school corridors in Switzerland. Joshiro Maruyama, double world champion at -66 kg, closed his competitive career in February 2025; today he lives in Switzerland with his family and has become a central presence at Ecole Mont-Olivet, a school that has made judo part of its educational environment.
His new role is not a smaller version of the old one. Teaching, demonstrating and passing on technical knowledge and judo values have replaced the chase for podiums. At the first Ecole Mont-Olivet Lausanne Grand Slam, that shift was visible on the biggest stage of all.
During the official opening ceremony, Maruyama performed an adapted nage-no-kata with Croatian adapted judoka Petra Orešković, an athlete with cerebral palsy and a recognised face of the adapted judo movement. Together they presented elite, adapted and deaf judo as one community, on one tatami.
The story here is not about rivalry. For Maruyama, it is about the quiet art of passing judo on: a world champion who once made opponents look ordinary now spends his energy making sure the next generation can begin their own journey on the tatami.