Self-control key for Burton as he begins his quest for gold

EUAN Burton is prepared to smash an opponent, rip one of their limbs off, or choke them unconscious in his bid to win a fight. What he will not do is lose his temper in the process.

At 33, the judoka from Edinburgh is far too experienced to be provoked into anger. As he gets ready for his Olympic campaign in the under-81kg category, he is confident he can achieve maximum aggression while maintaining self-control.

“I never fight angry,” Burton said yesterday after the draw for the competition. “Judo is most certainly a fight – you’re trying to smash someone on the back of their head, you’re trying to rip their arm out, or trying to choke them unconscious.

It’s a fight, but I like to think of myself more of an assassin than a wild mercenary. I fight a fight to try to beat every single player, but I’m fairly focused and difficult to get out of my comfort zone.

“I don’t get riled particularly. People have bitten me during contests, they’ve kicked me, punched me, they’re all illegal moves, but people still try and get away with them if the ref can’t quite see.

“I never react to those things. I’ve got one job to do on the mat and that’s to win the fight within the rules.”

Such a composed attitude could serve Burton well if he finds himself up against one particular opponent in his first bout on Tuesday. He will face the winner of the preliminary-round contest between Elnur Mammadli, of Azerbaijan, and Canada’s Antoine Valois-Fortier, and, while insisting he has no preconceptions about whom he might face, has a score to settle with the former.

“Mammadi is the Olympic champion at a weight lower,” Burton explained. “I’ve never beaten him the two times I’ve faced him. They were two pretty close fights and the one in 
Azerbaijan I felt I was a little bit cheated out of the fight.

“With the home crowd cheering him on and swaying the referee, he got the decision. But, hopefully, with the home crowd behind me this time I can get 
the win.

“That match in Azerbaijan was frustrating for a few seconds 
because it was a fight I felt I 
could and possibly should have won. But it was a full stadium with an Azerbaijani crowd watching their Olympic champion hero in the semi-final of one of the biggest judo tournaments in the world.

“There was always going to be a partisan crowd, but five minutes after it was done I wasn’t frustrated about it in the slightest. The two of us have shared a lot of conversations since. We’re not friends, but we’re very friendly when we see each other and there’s no animosity there.

“But he might well be the player standing in my way at the Olympic Games so I’m going to go out and treat him like any other player – and try to destroy him if I can.”

Having said that, Burton added that he would put any thoughts of destroying Mammadli – or Valois-Fortier – out of his head until Tuesday. He has no intention of frittering away energy needlessly, which is something he admits he did too often in his early years in competition.

“When I used to look at the draw when I was a younger player it would give me a restless night’s sleep [with the draw normally being on the eve of competition].

“I’d fight the fight I was going to fight over in my head hundreds of times so, by the time I got to the fight proper, it was almost a little bit stale. As a result I didn’t look at the draw until the morning of the fight when I weighed in, because it still gave you a couple of hours to decide what you were going to do.

“I knew the Games would be vastly different. The draw’s done and we’ve not even started and I don’t fight for days. With the way of the world now, actually trying to avoid the draw would be more stressful than just looking and getting it out the way. So I decided a year ago I’d start looking at the draw the day it was done.”