The Bilodid Kuznetsova family continues in Paris

The student surpasses the teacher reads an old adage but Daria Bilodid has given a new meaning to this phrase, trained by her mother Svetlana Kuznetsova, a Russian-born judoka who participated in several local tournaments, has a higher bar on her father Gennady Bilodid.

Gennady Bilodid is a Ukrainian judoka who accumulated lots of medals highlighting a bronze medal at the 2005 Senior World Championships, two European championships, and a bronze medal at the 1996 Junior World Championships and three Olympic appearances being the 2008 Beijing Olympics with a seventh place.

The young Daria at her short 19 has taken home almost as many medals as her father accompanied by several records, European champion in the cadet, junior and senior categories, world champion cadet and junior and double senior world champion, the prodigious daughter in 2018 became the only judoka to achieve in the same year the world junior and senior championships at the same time as the youngest senior world champion

In 2019 she departs from the junior championships to concentrate on the senior championships and added a new record, when becoming the youngest double world champion. Bilodid is less interested in her position in the World rank with an impressive 5295 points in the Olympic ranks. As a World Champion she only demands the gold in Tokyo2020.

It’s a story that very few households can tell but, the youngster has to deal with the pressure of being the favorite in the category of U48kg, something that did not seem to affect him at the 2019 Tokyo World Championships. None of the Japanese found the way to beat her, neither Funa Tonaki. Her height of 1.72m is normally a size for an athlete U63kg or even U70kg, so we wonder when the next step is taken and we estimate that after the Olympic Games Bilodid will take a natural break and come back U52kg in a category with still smaller opponents.

Bilodid learned from her loss against French Melanie Clement in Tbilisi last year and she could hold the pace she set since 2017. Bilodid a for sure one of the most interesting athletes to analyse her rapid transition. Soon we will see her in action in Paris.