It is a sport of balletic beauty and extraordinary violence – where else are you allowed to strangle an opponent unconscious?When Mark Law joined his local judo club he found himself able to observe at close quarters the sport practised at its highest level, as figures, grappled, whirled and flew through the air. His journey into judo then took him to Osaka, Japan, for the World Championships and to Athens for the Olympics. He explored the sport’s origins in seventeenth-century Samurai culture and met some of the most single-minded and self-denying competitors of all time. Funny, alarming and mesmerising, The Pyjama Game is one of the best sports books of recent years