Distria Krasniqi is a serial medallist at every level. From world championships to Olympic Games, she is sharp, well prepared and devastatingly powerful. Having won the Paris Grand Slam judo championships three previous occasions, she delivered once again in the women’s -52kg at this years edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a show of strength and skill, as the final began the Kosovan attacked with a small sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi, almost immediately, but used it to feel her opponent\u2019s balance and in the very next movement employed an enormous ashi-guruma that spun Ariane Toro Soler of Spain on to her back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Spanish judoka had a great day but Krasniqi\u2019s quality is something else altogether. She has her fourth Paris gold and looked incredible earning it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s -48kg home favourite Shirine Boukli did everything to make sure the first gold medal would stay at home, reaching the final after a series of dominant wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the final she faced Wenna Zhuang of China who had also had a fantastic morning, defeating a string of top judokas including world champion Scutto of Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boukli used a series of sutemi-waza attacks to ensure the pace stayed high and in her favour. Zhuang therefore picked up two penalties but Boukli felt a need to change tactic as the fight went into golden score. As she switched to hip techniques she was caught by Zhuang but under review a yuko was overturned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boukli then scored her own yuko and celebrated but that too was overturned. Taking a deep breath ready to continue, the French judoka switched tactic again and as she employed her o-soto-gari, the crowd erupted; the yuko was finally cemented on the scoreboard, dressed in red, white and blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Boukli\u2019s second gold medal at the Paris Grand Slam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Akari Omori of Japan took on double Olympic medallist Sarah-L\u00e9onie Cysique of France in the women’s -57kg. Whistles and cheers arrived thick and fast from the spectators and Cysique seemed to respond to them all, getting stringer as the time passed. Her score came after two and a half minutes, a waza-ari from a sasae-tsuri-komi-ashi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Omori raised her game and fought harder but Cysique was ready for that. She held her position and her nerve and as the crowd counted down for the last five seconds of the contest, Cysique knew the job was done. After six attempts and several medals, Cysique finally had her first Paris gold and it was clear that this victory meant a lot to her and to the French judo fans inside the arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women’s -63kg final, double world bronze medallist Enkhrillen Lkhagvatogoo of Mongolia took on Olympic and double world champion Rafaela Silva of Brazil, a twenty-time grand slam medallist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lkhagvatogoo was fast and gave all, but thirty-three year old Silva has fantastic ne-waza and used it perfectly to finish the contest by armlock in just 40 seconds, after chasing the Mongolian athlete to the ground as soon as she attacked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An emotional Silva has never won gold in Paris, with all her accolades and achievements; it was missing until today!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lightest of the men\u2019s categories, -60 kg, had been fought at an incredible pace all day. The medal contests were no different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dilshot Khalmativ of Ukraine and Balabay Aghayev of Azerbaijan faced off for the gold. Strong gripping tactics gave rise to fewer complete techniques than either judoka might have liked but they moved and strategised and attacked, keeping the suspense alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At full-time, there were only penalties on the board and so they moved into golden score, an unlimited period in which the athletes can separate themselves by a positive score or a collection of three penalties to one person, whichever comes first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aghayev understood the brief better than his opponent and with a very clever idea, he rose from an exchange which had put him on the floor, hooking Khalmatov\u2019s leg and throwing him backwards for a score. This is the Azerbaijani\u2019s third grand slam gold medal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
World champion Takeshi Takeoka of Japan was up against Korean Kim Channyeong in an all-Asian -66kg final under the lights of the Accor Arena Bercy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Takeoka knew it wouldn\u2019t be as easy as his red back patch suggested and so he got down to work. However, a ko-uchi-gaeshi from Kim earned the first score of the contest. This seemed to drive Takeoka harder towards the top of the podium; his response was to accelerate and it was the right answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a busy exchange he scored a waza-ari with sumi-gaeshi and transitioned perfectly into osaekomi. The contest was over and the world champion added a Paris Grand Slam gold to his growing collection of prizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The -73 kg category produced some of the biggest shocks of the day in Paris with many of the top judokas falling at wayside early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Italian Manuel Lombardo and Makhmadbek Makhmadbekov of the UAE didn\u2019t let the occasion get to them. No matter what happened around them they stayed focused on their task and reached the final in good shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lombardo was under pressure from the very first grip. Makhmadbekov tied him up and attacked with a first o-soto-makikomi for a waza-ari. After another minute passed, he did it again and it was unstoppable. This was an enormous win for the Emirati athlete; a Paris to lift a team that has been building for many years and is now receiving the fruit of their labour on a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Men’s -60 kg: <\/strong> 1. Aghayev Balabay (Aze); 2. Khalimatov Dilshot (Ukr); 3. Ashpiz Ishak (Isr) and Bakytzhan Aman (Kas) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s -66 kg: <\/strong>1. Takeoka Takeshi (Jpn); 2. Kim Channyeong (Kor); 3. Pashayev Ruslan (Aze) and Kentoku Kairi (Jpn)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Men’s -73kg: <\/strong>1. Makhmadbekov Makhmadbek (UAE), 2. Lombardo Manuel (Ita); 3. Asadulloev Muhiddin (Tjk) and Levy Benjamin (Gbr)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s -48kg: <\/strong>1. Boukli Shirine (Fra); 2. Zhuang Wenna (Chn); 3. Koga Wakana (Jpn) and Hui Xinran (Chn)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s -52 kg<\/strong>: 1. Krasniqi Distria (Kos); 2. Toro Soler Ariane (Esp); 3. Ballhaus Mascha (Ger) and Buchard Amandine (Fra)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s -57 kg<\/strong>: 1. Cysique Sarah Leonie (Fra); 2. Omori Akari (Jpn); 3. Tamaoki Momo (Jpn) and Mokdar Faiza (Fra)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women’s -63kg: <\/strong>1. Silva Rafaela (Bra); 2. Lkhagvatogoo Enkhrilen (Mgl); 3. Yamaguchi Kirari (Jpn) and Joanne van Lieshout (Ned)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Distria Krasniqi is a serial medallist at every level. From world championships to Olympic Games, she is sharp,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[106],"class_list":["post-9160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-judo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi.jpg",2000,1134,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-300x170.jpg",300,170,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-768x435.jpg",640,363,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-1024x581.jpg",640,363,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-1536x871.jpg",1536,871,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi.jpg",2000,1134,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Distria-Krasniqi.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9162,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9160\/revisions\/9162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}