Tina Trstenjak finishes against her greatest rival

Tina Trstenjak has officially retired from competition but it has been a long timing. She had not competed since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, where she got the silver medal. She did not exactly finish her career at the very top but she was very close to it, making quite a triumphant comeback to end up in the final of the Olympics.

Trstenjak’s potential became obvious in 2014 when she managed to get a bronze at Chelyabinsk World Championships (she had lost in the quarterfinal to Israel’s superb Yarden Gerbi). The following year would be the start of a two-year period where she was undoubtedly, the very best in the world.

She won the 2015 Astana World Championships, defeating her rival Clarisse Agbegnenou of France in the final. She would repeat that feat in the 2016 Rio Olympics, beating Agbegnenou in the final. This was Trstenjak at the pinnacle of her competitive career.

In the 2017 World’s, she once again made it to the final but this time, she lost to Agbegnenou. In both the 2018 and 2019 World’s, she lost in the semifinal to Miku Takaichi (nee Tashiro) of Japan, who proved to be her bogeywoman. Their’s was a rivalry that began in 2013 and lasted through 2020, during which time they fought 10 times. Each and every time, Trstenjak would lose to Takaichi.

She fought Agbegnenou a total 11 times. Although Agbegnenou would win seven out of those 11 times, in 2015 and 2016, in the Worlds and the Olympics respectively, Trstenjak emerged triumphant.

Perhaps it was appropriate that her last match of her career was against Agbegnenou, in the final of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Although she didn’t win, you could see that Trstenjak was happy to cap off her impressive career fighting her greatest rival.