Tokyo Olympics viewers shocked after coach slaps athlete before judo match

Fans watching the Tokyo Olympic Games were left shocked after seeing a coach slapping an athlete before a judo match.

As part of a pep talk ahead of her match against Hungarian opponent Szofi Ozbas, German judo star Martyna Trajdos was thoroughly roughhoused by her coach who grabbed her by her tunic and shook her before her slapping her twice on each cheek in quick succession.

Speaking after the match, which she lost, Trajdos explained that the slap was a “ritual” which she had chosen.

Posting on Instagram, she joked: “Look’s like this was not hard enough”.

She added: “I wish I could have made a different headline today. As I already said that’s the ritual which I chose pre competition.

“My coach is just doing what I want him to do to fire me up.”

But reacting to the footage, which has racked up over 5.2 million views people on social media were shocked by his aggressive methods to psyche her up.

One person tweeted: “There is context. There must be context. *whispers: what is the context?*”

While another simply said: “What the...”

Others gave it the meme treatment, and joked that it represented their alarm clocks waking them up in the morning :

Another said having a bowl of cereal may be a better pre-match ritual:

Different strokes for different folks...?