This was the fifth Olympics for Driulys González (Cuba), Mária Pekli (Australia), Ryoko Tamura-Tani (Japan).

The only other judokas to compete at five Olympics are Robert Van de Walle (Belgium), the judoka-bobsledder Jorge Bonnet (Puerto Rico) and Telma Monteiro (Portugal).

*   Host nation (China)Together with 366 directly qualified athletes, there were 20 invitational places from a Tripartite Commission (genders and categories are yet to be decided), making up a total athlete quota of 386 athletes—217 men, 147 women and 22 places not yet allocated to a gender.

b If the host nation qualified athletes directly through the world championships or Asian continental qualification system, the reserved entry places were reallocated as part of the Asian continental qualification.

Continental qualification places were allocated through the ranking system based on the major tournaments on the continent (continental championships, qualification tournaments).