Distria Krasniqi is back the world number one position

The Kosovan Olympic champion sits ahead of Buchard according to the rankings but it was Amandine Buchard who took gold at the 2023 World Judo Masters, beating Distria Krasniqi. She’s not been used to silver medals until this year but that was definitely her colour in 2023, not winning an event since Paris in February. However, silver at Tbilisi, the Europeans, the Masters and Baku is a pretty impressive record and we all know she can do it when it really counts.

Krasniqi will be hard to beat in Paris! What an unbelievable ride of the tiny Kosovan to step out of U52kg to go for U48kg, reach the world number one position in U48kg, win the Olympic title and get back in U52kg and become the world number one.

Keldiyorova sits at number 3 but despite some immaculate performances, to stay in that position on Olympic day will take some doing as just below her are Olympic medallists Giuffrida (ITA) and Giles (GBR) and a little further down the list is the undisputed queen of the category, Uta Abe.

Abe, like her older brother, is, at 23 years old, a seemingly impassable challenge. She hasn’t lost a contest since she was a teen; in fact she has had only one single loss since her first full year on the IJF Tour, back in 2017. Her online record is a string of 1s: 4 world titles, an Olympic gold and 12 further WJT golds. Interestingly, as an aside, she has never competed at the Masters. In the summer just ahead of us, anything less than gold will be felt deeply as a failure. The Abes plan to do something unthinkable in the French capital and yet we are all thinking it.