The career of Majlinda Kelmendi in review

Majlinda Kelmendi is for sure the best sports ambassador of Kosovo. She is judo world champion in 2013 and 2014. She took bronze at the 2019 World Championships in Tokyo. She is 2014, 2016. 2017 and 2019 European Champion. Kelmendi was coached by Driton Kuka and now she is a coach herself.

Majlinda Kelmendi (KOS) began her international career competing in the 2008 European Cup in Luzern at the -48kg division. There, she won her first match, against Anna Grenades of France, but lost against Birgit Ente of the Netherlands in the semifinal. She went on to win the bronze, defeating Nadine Gillme of France.

Her first major international event was the 2009 Tblisi European Championships, where at -52kg she lost her first match, against Ana Carrascosa of Spain. Next, she took part in the 2009 Rotterdam World Championships where she again lost her first match, against Aynur Samat of Turkey. It was an inauspicious start for her senior career but she was still a junior then, and at the junior level, she did very well.

She won gold in the 2009 Yerevan European Junior Championships. She also won gold at the 2009 Paris World Junior Championships.

Her first IJF World Tour event was the 2010 Paris Grand Slam. There, she lost her first-round match, against Natalia Kuziutina of Russia. Her first IJF World Tour win was at the 2010 Tunis Grand Prix where she once again face Carrascosa of Spain in the final. This time, Kelmendi defeated her.

In the 2010 Tokyo World Championships, she won her first match but then lost her second match, to Erika Miranda of Brazil. At the 2011 Paris World Championships, it was a repeat performance. She once again won her first match but lost her second match.

Kelmendi’s Olympic debut was a bit of a disaster. She did well enough in her first match, defeating her Finnish opponent by waza-ari-awasete-ippon. But then, she went on to lose to Christianne Legentil of Mauritius, who countered her hip throw to score a stunning ippon. Kelmendi was visibly stunned by the throw and took some time to get up and bow out.

She did well though in the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, defeating Brazil’s Miranda in the final. This was the start of a string of successes, including two IJF Grand Prix and an IJF World Masters, leading up to the 2013 World’s. Along the way, she lost only to two players: Yuki Hashimoto of Japan, in the 2013 Paris Grand Slam and Odette Giuffrida of Italy in the 2013 European Championships.

At the 2013 Rio World Championships, she excelled, defeating Hashimoto in the semifinal (albeit by penalties) and destroying home favorite, Miranda, in the final. This was the signal of her arrival as the most dominant force in world judo for the -52kg division. She sealed her dominance in the 2014 Chelyabinsk World Championships, defeating all comers with relative ease. It didn’t look like there was anyone in her league.

A serious injury kept her out of competition for most of 2015, and she missed the World Championships that year too. She did a good job winning the Paris Grand Slam in October that year, defeating Hashimoto again, in the semifinal, and Evelyne Tschopp of Switzerland in the final. But the following month she lost to old rival Miranda, who threw her with drop seoi-nage and immediately snapped on a strangle for ippon.

Perhaps this was the wake-up call she needed, as Kelmendi went undefeated after that until the 2016 Rio Olympics. There, her first-round opponent was Tschopp whom she threw with a huge uchimata for ippon. Next, she was up against Legentil, the Mauritian who countered her for ippon in London. It was her chance to get her revenge but Kelmendi was very cautious and relied on penalties to win. Her semifinal match, against Misato Nakamura, was a somewhat controversial one. After Nakamura received a shido for passivity, Kelmendi went on the defensive and could have easily been given a shido too. But she didn’t get it and subsequently won the match by penalties. Some felt there was favoritism at play but she was through to the final.

There, she faced Italy’s Guiffrida, who took the risk of attacking Kelmendi’s leading leg with kosoto-gake, only to be countered for a yuko score. This was enough for Kelmendi to win the match, as she expertly killed time until the match was over.

This Olympic victory would be the pinnacle of Kelmendi’s career. After that, she would be marred by injury. Also, perhaps after having achieved two World titles and an Olympic gold, she was no longer as hungry for success as before.

In 2017, she did well to win the Paris Grand Slam and the European Championships but at the Budapest World Championships, she lost to Ai Shishime of Japan in the semifinal and to old rival Miranda in the bronze medal match. One year after winning the Olympic title, Kelmendi left the World Championships without a medal of any color.

Injury kept her from competing for nearly a year. In her comeback, at the 2018 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, a heavily bandaged Kelmendi was forced to forfeit her final match midway through her contest against Giuffrida because her nose started bleeding again. She had earlier butted heads with Gili Cohen in the quarterfinal, leading to a serious nosebleed.

In the lead up to the 2019 Tokyo World Championships, Kelmendi seemed to be back on track. She won three IJF World Tour events and a European title that but a poor showing at the 2019 Budapest Grand Prix just a month before the World’s did not bode well for her comeback attempt. In Budapest, she lost in the semifinal to Chishima Maeda from Japan and then lost the bronze medal match to Ana Perez Box from Spain. She walked away from that event with no medal.

At the 2019 Tokyo World Championships, Kelmendi lost her semifinal match against then-rising star Uta Abe. The two had not met before. Neither was able to throw the other but Abe managed to take Kelmendi to the ground and pin her for ippon. Kelmendi was able to salvage a bronze medal but this was not the color she was looking for.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics was delayed for a year due to the Covid pandemic. In the lead up to it, Kelmendi defeated Giuffrida in the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Slam and then lost to her at the 2019 European Club Championships just a month later. The Covid struck.

After more than a year of no competitions due to Covid, Kelmendi returned for the 2021 IJF World Masters in Doha. There, she lost to Amandine Buchard of France in the semifinal. One month later, she lost to Britain’s Chelsie Giles in semifinal of the 2021 Tel Aviv Grand Slam.

Kelmendi’s last hurrah was the Tokyo Olympics but alas it was not to be her crowning glory. She lost her first match, to Reka Pupp of Hungary. A clearly dejected Kelmendi was out of the Olympics after just one match.

The years after her historic 2016 Olympic win were not successful ones for Kelmendi, and by the time the Tokyo Olympics came along, she had become the proverbial shadow of her former self. Still, Kelmendi can look back at three amazing events in her career: 2013 Worlds, 2014 Worlds and 2016 Olympics, where she reigned supreme and nobody even came anywhere close to her