{"id":17009,"date":"2021-07-07T22:16:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T20:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/?p=17009"},"modified":"2021-07-08T00:00:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T22:00:40","slug":"sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports icon, Majlinda Kelmendi \u2013 the Judo World champion inspiring Kosovo youth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the city of Peja in Kosovo, younger generations have been training for quite some time, having Majlinda Kelmeni, who has been a gold medalist in Judo, as their model and hero.<\/p>\n<p>The 30-year-old athlete has become an inspiration since she started to bring home international trophies. In 2016, she won the gold medal in the lightweight category at the Rio de Janerio Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, a statue was raised in her honor by local government authorities and a new training center in the judo disciple is being built on a hill overlooking the entire city.<\/p>\n<p>Driton Kuka, trainer of Kelmend, says that her achievement made the entire world get to know the country of around 1.8 million citizens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe champion of our teams, made the entire world turn their eyes on Kosovo and also made it possible for us to go to the Olympic Games,\u201d said Kuka, Majlinda Kelmendi\u2019s trainer.<\/p>\n<p>Kelmendi says she had received many other offers from other nations, before Kosovo was allowed to participate in the games. But, &#8211; she said \u2013 the support received by citizens of Kosovo has much more value than the millions she could\u2019ve won in another country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew that in Kosovo, we would never make the millions offered to us by other countries. But my trainer and I don\u2019t regret out decision. The feelings I have lived racing for Kosovo is something money can\u2019t buy,\u201d said Majlinda Kelmendi, Olympic champion.<\/p>\n<p>The Olympics Judo race will start on July 24<sup>th<\/sup> in Tokyo, where Kelmendi will aim to keep her title and become world champion once again.<\/p>\n<p><strong>YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"title-post\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/albania\/2021\/05\/25\/15-year-old-nansi-haxhiu-the-champion-of-an-endangered-sport-in-albania\/\">15-year-old Nansi Haxhiu, the champion of an endangered sport in Albania<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"title-post\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/kosovo\/2021\/04\/01\/spanish-public-tv-hostile-toward-kosovo-writes-name-during-soccer-match-in-lower-case\/\">Spanish public TV hostile toward Kosovo, writes name during soccer match in lower-case<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li class=\"title-post\"><strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the city of Peja in Kosovo, younger generations have been training for quite some time, having Majlinda Kelmeni, who has been a gold medalist in Judo, as their model and hero. The 30-year-old athlete has become an inspiration since she started to bring home international trophies. In 2016, she won the gold medal in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":17010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[151],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sports icon, Majlinda Kelmendi \u2013 the Judo World champion inspiring Kosovo youth - Euronews Albania<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sports icon, Majlinda Kelmendi \u2013 the Judo World champion inspiring Kosovo youth - Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the city of Peja in Kosovo, younger generations have been training for quite some time, having Majlinda Kelmeni, who has been a gold medalist in Judo, as their model and hero. The 30-year-old athlete has become an inspiration since she started to bring home international trophies. In 2016, she won the gold medal in [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Euronews Albania\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/euronews.al\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-07-07T20:16:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-07-07T22:00:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Majlinda-Kelmendi.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nen Si\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@euronewsalbania\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@euronewsalbania\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nen Si\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nen Si\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/444d280f35e047949b7f0bc08093608f\"},\"headline\":\"Sports icon, Majlinda Kelmendi \u2013 the Judo World champion inspiring Kosovo youth\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-07-07T20:16:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-07-07T22:00:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\"},\"wordCount\":305,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Majlinda-Kelmendi.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Kryesoret\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Kosovo\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/euronews.al\/en\/sports-icon-majlinda-kelmendi-the-judo-champion-inspiring-kosovo-youth\/\",\"name\":\"Sports icon, Majlinda Kelmendi \u2013 the Judo World champion inspiring Kosovo youth - 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