Craig Fallon
Judoka who held the world and European titles simultaneously
CRAIG FALLON, who has died of undisclosed causes aged 36, was the last British judoka to win a world title, in 2005; he also won the Commonwealth title in 2002 and competed at two Olympic Games, although he left both times without the medal the judo world had been expecting.
Quietly spoken off the mat, but supremely confident on it, with an unorthodox, all-out attacking style, he was nicknamed “the Harry Houdini of judo” for his ability to twist and contort his way out of tricky situations. He also acquired a reputation as a maverick, often infuriating officialdom: “Once you get your own way of doing things, you’re happy with it and it works, there’s no need to find another way,” he insisted.
Craig Andrew Fallon was born in Wolverhampton on December 18 1982. Something of a tearaway as a child, he took up judo at the age of nine when it was suggested to his mother that a martial art might give him a suitable outlet.
He started out at the Wolverhampton Judo Club, then at 14 moved to the Hardy Spicer Club in Birmingham, making rapid progress – and setting out his intentions by having the British Olympic Association logo tattooed on his biceps.
But he became bored with judo and dropped out for a while: “I just wanted to hang around with my friends and do what normal 17-year-olds do. I was thinking about going into graphic design and never doing judo again.”
But thanks to the efforts of his coach, who would drop Craig’s sister off from her judo sessions, and persuasive friends, he returned to take silver in the junior European Championships.
He began studying sports science while maintaining his progress through the judo ranks, and in 2002, in the British Open at Crystal Palace, he cruised through to the bantamweight final, in which he demolished an experienced Moldovan opponent with a series of irresistible throws.
Later that year, at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, his half of the draw was packed with big names, but he dispatched them all, and in the final, in what the Telegraph described as “a performance of startling aggression”, he trounced the Indian, Akram Shah.
He won the following year’s British Open with ease and took silver at both the World Championships and the European Championships. By then, prone to cuts above the eyes, he was usually fighting with a piratical bandage round his head.
He was one of the favourites going into the 2004 Olympics in Athens, only to crash out in the second round to a Greek judoka who snatched victory four seconds from the end of the bout. Fallon blamed the refereeing: “I knew that it was going to be a bit biased, it always is when you are fighting a home fighter.”
In the final of the following year’s World Championships in Cairo he beat the Austrian, Ludwig Paischer, becoming only the third British man to win a world title. By now he was in his pomp, and at Tampere in Finland in 2006 he took a brilliant gold at the European Championships.
Only the second British man, after Neil Adams, to hold both world and European titles, he was again among the favourites for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. But fighting with uncharacteristic passivity he could finish only seventh.
The setback led him to take a long break from the sport. Fed up with having to starve himself to make the weight, he moved up a category, but he was eliminated in the first round of the 2011 World Championships. The following January he announced his retirement.
Fallon coached the Austrian national squad for two years, then in March 2019 he was appointed head coach of the Welsh Judo Association.
Craig Fallon is survived by his partner and a son.
Craig Fallon, born December 18 1982, died July 15 2019