Rena Kanokogi

Rena "Rusty" Kanokogi (née Glickman; July 30, 1935 – November 21, 2009) was an American judoka and coach. In 1959, she won a medal at a YMCA judo tournament while disguised as a man, but had to return it after acknowledging that she was a woman. Traveling to Japan to continue her judo training, Kanokogi became the first woman allowed to train in the men's group at the Kodokan. She is perhaps best known for pioneering women's judo competition at the Olympic Games. Kanokogi is often referred to as "The Mother of Women's Judo".

Early life Kanokogi was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her family home in Coney Island was not a stable one, and she began working in various jobs at the age of seven. In her adolescence, she led a street gang known as the Apaches. In the 1950s, she used her brother's weights for weight training and also worked out on the punching bag at the gymnasium. She bore a son, Chris Stewart, Kanokogi and her first husband divorced after a short period of marriage. Women were not explicitly barred from the competition, but no woman had ever tried to participate before, and there was no place on the tournament application to indicate gender. After "pulverizing" the other students in the women's training group, she became the first woman allowed to train in the men's group at the Kodokan. was the best man at the Kanokogis' wedding. which included several of the top women in the 1970s: Amy Kublin, Delores Brodie, and Maureen Braziel.

In 1965, Kanokogi directed the first junior judo tournament held in New York: the New York City YMCA Junior Judo Championships. In 1977, she organized a team of Jewish–American women to compete at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.

In 1980, Kanokogi organized the first women's judo world championship in Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum, sponsoring it through the mortgage of her own home. She was the driving force behind the introduction of women's judo as an exhibition sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics—she had threatened to sue the International Olympic Committee for not accepting women’s judo as an Olympic sport. In April 2009, she was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. She was survived by her husband, children Ted Kanokogi and Jean Kanokogi, and two grandchildren according to one newspaper article, as well as eldest son Chris Stewart Kanokogi and a third grandchild.