Majlinda Kelmendi wins gold for Kosovo’s historic first Olympic medal

The two time world champion Majlinda Kelmendi made history on Sunday (07 August) wining first ever Olympic gold medal for her country: Kosovo. Kelmendi defeated Misato Nakamura of Japan in the semi-final.

Kelmendi, who was also Kosovo’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony Friday, told the Pristina daily Koha Net: “I am proud to have shown that young Kosovars can achieve great success in the sport”.

The moment that she was presented with the gold and her national anthem was played was clearly a massive one for Kelmendi, as the enormity of her achievement sunk in and she was unable to hold back the tears of joy.

She was already the golden girl of judo – now she has the medal to go with it.

Uzbekistan’s Rishod Sobirov won the other bronze medal, the third consecutive Olympics he has done so following Beijing 2008 and London 2012. After she was finally cleared to return, Kelmendi tried to compensate for the time off with extra hours of training, but sustained other injuries which kept her out of the World Championships a year ago.

Kelmendi, a two-time world champion in judo, called it “the best thing that happened to Kosovo.”

Kelmendi, ranked second in her -52kg weight class, topped 10th-seeded Giuffrida with a single point from a yuko that had initially been judged to be a more valuable waza-ari.

“To be honest, I came here for the gold medal, but it’s insane”, she said.

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach presented her with the gold. I just proved to them that even after the war, if they want to be Olympic champions, they can be.

Nakamura took one of the bronze medals, while Natalia Kuziutina of Russian Federation earned the other bronze.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s not still a dream”, Basile said.