Judo coach 'remembers training bin Laden'

Osama bin Laden stood out not just because of his height but because of his serious, conservative demeanour, according to a Taiwan man who says the Al Qaeda leader was a student in his judo classes in Saudi Arabia.

Jimmy Wu, a top Taiwan judo coach, told Reuters that he came across bin Laden - who was killed by US troops on Monday - when coaching the Saudi Arabian national judo team from 1981 to 1991.

Bin Laden, whom Wu then knew only as "Osama", attended classes at the judo centre while still a university student.

Wu said he was too tall for judo and advised him against the sport, but bin Laden was insistent so Wu accepted him.

"I didn't know the name bin Laden then," Wu said.

"After 9/11 I was invited to a seminar, and some of my former students there said 'oh Jimmy, Osama, now he's our hero'.

"I was surprised and I looked for some pictures and I said 'oh this guy' and I started to have some memory of him."

Wu showed Reuters photographs of himself and a tall, thin, bearded, serious young man with a mop of black hair whom he said was bin Laden.

Wu said bin Laden attended lessons two to three times a week but Wu never saw him again after 1984.

Reuters has no way of verifying that the man in the pictures was bin Laden.

Bin Laden was shot dead by US forces in Pakistan on Monday.

He had been on America's most wanted list since his followers carried out the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001.

Pakistan officials said on Saturday that he may have lived in the country for seven years.

Wu, now an Australian citizen who divides his time between Sydney, Taiwan and the Middle East, remembered an occasion when his wife came to find him at the judo centre.

She had wanted to go shopping and Wu was late.

"She came into the centre and most of the students weren't bothered, some smiled, but one really tall one came to me and said 'who is that?'" he said.

Wu replied that it was his wife.

"The tall one said 'this is the centre, no women should be in here'," he said.

"He did not approve. I have a particular memory of this. That was Osama."

Source: ABC

I'm sure if you think about it long enough, you'll work it out.

It's not like we don't have gender segregated gyms in the West for you to be completely ignorant of the concept...

fd... do you know what fernwood is? If a lady takes her husband to fernwood he will be refused entry, as it's a gender-segregated gym. I'm sure you're not this feeble minded that you can't get your head around that... Honestly, I just shake my head sometimes when I read your posts. It's like you just don't have the basic shame to realise when you are embarrassing yourself with idiotic questions.

FD would you complain to your wife if she allowed her coach into the same building as you?

freediver wrote on May 12^th, 2011 at 6:18pm:


FD would you complain to your wife if she allowed her coach into the same bed as you?

You should contact Fernwood female gyms and express your outrage at their 'female only' policy.

so fd do you actually comprehend that some gyms are gender segregated, like fernwood here in Australia for instance? And therefore it's not permitted for the opposite gender to enter the gym?

Or does your rabid anti-Islamic bias just suspend all semblance of rational thought?

Of course I understand Abu.

Would you complain to your coach if he allowed his wife into the same building as you?

Then again, given that you obviously have nothing else to criticise about the article, I guess you can't help but pursue your ignorant misunderstanding of how gender-segregated gyms work..