Alex Usanov and Thierry Dusautoir have a couple of things in common. They both started in the backrow and reached brown belt level in judo.
While the former French captain remained a career-long member of rugby’s breakaway unit, Leinster’s Usanov, having played there for most of his schooldays, was redeployed to loosehead prop with conspicuous success.
Just 18 years old when he first played for the Ireland Under-20s, he was still a teenager when chosen for the most recent Emerging Ireland tour to South Africa in 2024. He also played for the Ireland XV against Spain.
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Playing in the frontrow at that age is no bagatelle. What it does highlight is an abundance of courage and quality. His judo background was part of that initial coping mechanism. He won All Ireland titles in 2018 and 2019 and a European silver medal in jiu-jitsu.
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“Judo was a big part of my life,” he says. He competed on a regular basis against the best in his age category, home and abroad in Spain and France, colliding with judokas who were on Team GB in a Sportive in Scotland.
“And the thing with judo as well, it’s one-on-one. When you lose, it all comes down to yourself. There’s no one else to blame. And you must be present because one small mistake and you’re on your back and you’ve lost. I’d say, yeah, it’s had a big impact [on my rugby].”
What are the practical implications that cross the two sports? “Knowing how to fall, correctly. I see lads fall and they put their arm out and their elbow is going [into the ground] in all kinds of ways. Learning how to fall from a young age and knowing how to control a body and move.
“When you’re in a breakdown clearing lads out, you know how to take them. It’s probably helped me with my scrumming and getting down to [the right] height and knowing how to be in that [power] position. I’d say it’s helped me a lot.
“I used to go abroad a lot. I did jiu-jitsu as well to help my judo. There’s a ground aspect in jiu-jitsu. You get an amount of time on the deck so you can fight on the ground. I came second in Europe in jiu-jitsu.”
Usanov offers a layman’s guide to the difference. “Judo is standing and you can’t touch the legs. In jiu-jitsu, you can touch the legs and [while] you start standing it mostly takes place on the ground. Judo you win, there’s a scoring system. If you throw them flat on their back you win straight away – ippon.
“In jiu-jitsu, there is points [scoring] but the goal is to try and submit them with an arm lock or choke them out.”
At one point, Usanov and his sister, Ava Usanova – he says she was even better than he was – briefly thought about the Olympics but both ended up concentrating on rugby. Ava is an underage international at Sevens and has played age-grade for Leinster.
Alex gave up judo/jiu-jitsu aged 15. At the time you had to be 16 to go for a black belt. It wasn’t his only nod to sporting diversity. Shot put and gymnastics were other pursuits. And swimming, the latter a nod to his father, Ilya, who excelled at the sport as well as boxing. A firefighter now, he came from Russia to go to college and stayed when he met and married Marian.
Rounding out the family background, Alex’s half-sister Dasha is married to Ulster backs coach Mark Sexton. When asked about where he got his strength and size, Usanov talks about panicking during the coronavirus lockdown that his team-mates were devoting themselves to physical self-improvement.
“I was like: ‘God, Dad, we need to lock in here, get on the weights.’ Every day I was doing so many workouts. I bulked up and put on so much muscle mass. All the other lads were just saying they were doing all the gym [work]. They were just playing PlayStation all the time. They weren’t doing anything. I was just going out for runs, panicking and trying to really get after it.
“I thought everyone was doing that. It turns out, none of them. When they came back, they were like, what programme were you on all summer? We were playing PlayStation. That’s probably when the strength took a big kind of jump.”
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He’s been a little unlucky with injury, not least on his first Leinster Champions Cup start against Sale Sharks last season. He damaged an ankle after just four minutes and had to go off. He made his debut against Zebre last season: 11 appearances, two starts.
He’s tried to soak up as much information as he can from senior internationals like Andrew Porter and Tadhg Furlong and paid tribute to how much time Rabah Slimani spent in helping his development. So what’s his goal heading into the new season?
“Just get more game time on my belt and hopefully play in a few Champions Cup games. Maybe get a Champions Cup start where I make an impact and don’t just play for four minutes. It would be nice, just play more games and maybe assert myself a bit more in the pecking order and try to jump a few lads.
“All the looseheads are so good. Also, another goal I had down was just learn as much as I can.”
He’s already proven that he’s a quick study.
