James Bregman

James Steven Bregman (born November 17, 1941, in Arlington, Virginia) was a member of the first American team to compete in judo at the Summer Olympics. A founding member and President of the United States Judo Federation, in his competitive career he was a bronze Olympic medalist, a World Championships bronze medalist (1965), a Pan American Championships gold medalist, and a Maccabiah Games gold medalist (1965).

Biography Bregman is Jewish. His father had a grocery store in Green Valley, Virginia, and the family lived above it on the second floor.

Early training Bregman suffered as a child from asthma and bronchitis, and to build endurance tried several indoor sports before recognizing he could succeed at Judo. He was bussed to Fairlington Elementary School and was an honor graduate of Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. From an early age he trained at the Judo Club associated with the Officer's Athletic Club at the Pentagon, and at the Washington Judo Club, winning his Black Belt at 15. After High School, he enrolled as an economics student at Tokyo's Jesuit-run Sophia University. While a student at Sophia, he pursued long hours of Judo training at Tokyo's Kodokan Judo Institute, and later received more advanced training at Meiji and Waseda Universities.

In 1964 he won the AAU Senior National Judo Championship.

Bronze Olympic medal Judo was first included in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and Bregman won a bronze medal in the under 80 kg category in those games—the only American to bring home a medal in judo in the 1964 Summer Games.

The judo world sometimes speaks with pride of the 1964 US Olympic Judo Team as consisting of an American Jew, an African-American, a Japanese-American, and a Native American (see Nishioka's book in the references, below).

Pan-American Championships, and Maccabiah Games In 1965 he won a gold medal at the Pan American Championships in the 176 pound division.