Editing Anton Geesink (section)

==Judo career==
[[File:Anton Geesink (1956).jpg|thumb|upright|left|Geesink in 1956]]
Geesink took up judo at age 14 and, by 17, started competing internationally, winning a silver medal in 1951.<ref name=obit/> He won his first European title the following year. Through to 1967, twenty more European titles followed.

At the 1956 World Championships, Geesink was eliminated in the semi-finals against [[Yoshihiko Yoshimatsu]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Black Belt Vol. 2, No. 2|publisher=Active Interest Media, Inc.|date=March 1964|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QdkDAAAAMBAJ|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_QdkDAAAAMBAJ/page/n26 27]}}</ref> At the 1961 World Championships, Geesink, then 5th dan,<ref>{{cite book|title=Black Belt Vol. 1, No. 3|publisher=Active Interest Media, Inc.|date=April 1962|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iNkDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA7|pages=7, 64}}</ref> became World Champion in the open class, defeating the Japanese champion [[Koji Sone]]. Japanese judokas had won all the World Championship titles contested up to that point.

Judo debuted as an official sport at the [[1964 Summer Olympics]], held in the sport's home country, Japan. Although Japan dominated three of the four weight divisions (light, middle, and heavy), Anton Geesink won the final of the open weight division, defeating [[Akio Kaminaga]] in front of his home crowd.<ref>{{cite book|title=Mastering Judo|publisher=Human Kinetics|author=Takahashi, Masao |year=2005|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qZrXwJCXOuEC&pg=PA7|page=7|isbn=073605099X}}</ref><ref name=sr/>

After winning the 1965 World Championships and a last European title in 1967, Geesink quit competitive judo.

Anton Geesink was one of the few 10th [[Dan (rank)|Dan]] grade judoka ([[Dan (rank)#Ranks in Japanese|jūdan]]) recognized by the [[International Judo Federation|IJF]] but not by [[Kodokan]] at that rank. Promotions from 6th to 10th Dan are awarded for services to the sport of judo. In 2010 there are [[List of judoka#Male – Kodokan 10th dan|three living 10th dan grade judoka (jūdan)]] recognized by Kodokan: [[Toshiro Daigo]], [[Ichiro Abe]] and [[Yoshimi Osawa]]. The Kodokan has not awarded the 10th Dan to anybody outside Japan.