Ryoko Tamura - the tiny pin-up girl of Japan's last two Olympic expeditions - is hoping that the old adage "third time lucky" will ring true in Sydney. The four-time world judo bantam weight champion has lost only twice in eight years - in the finals of the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics.

She has won her last 49 matches after falling to North Korea's unknown wildcard Kye Sun-Hui in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic final. At the 1992 Barcelona Games, when women's judo made its Olympic debut, she toppled all-conquering Karen Briggs of Britain in the quarter-finals only to lose to France's Cecile Nowak in the final.

Tamura has won all there is to win in the sport, apart from that elusive Olympic gold, since pounding the tatami mat for the first time at the age of eight. She won her first title at the prestigious Fukuoka women's contest in 1990 when she was 15.

While competing at the highest level is enough for some, she also manages to fit in a career at Toyota Motor Corp while simultaneously studying for her doctorate at Tokyo's Nippon Sport Science University. Sounds like one busy woman.