Kelmendi made history on Sunday by winning her country’s first ever Olympic medal in their Games debut as she claimed under-52kg glory in the Rio dojo.
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Mustafa said on his Facebook page: “Kosovo today won the first Olympic medal as an independent and sovereign state and I am confident that our athletes will be unstoppable in the quest for medals over the coming years”.
“That means a lot”.
Kelmendi, who was flagbearer for Kosovo at the opening ceremony on Friday, is one of just eight Kosovans competing at the Games after the country became an official International Olympic Committee member in 2014 following its independence from Serbia.
Majlinda Kelmendi represented Albania at the London Games in 2012. “Then they passed me” – American rider Mara Abbott gets achingly close to winning the women’s cycling road race before she’s passed on the final straight and winds up fourth. In a visit to Kosovo past year, IOC President Thomas Bach vowed to try his best to personally present Kosovo its first medal whenever it would win one.
“I have lived four years for this day, for this moment, and I felt so happy there at the podium when I saw my flag and when I heard my anthem”, she told reporters. “Even if we come from a small country, a poor country”, she said.
“All the people, especially kids, in Kosovo look to me as a hero”.
“Sincerely, I don’t realise what’s going on”, Basile said.
In the women’s under 57kg, defending Olympic champion Kaori Matsumoto will face competition from the current world number one, Mongolia’s Sumiya Dorisuren. The other bronze went to Russia’s Natalia Kuziutina, who pinned China’s Ma Yingnan for an ippon during their Bronze Medal Match.
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“I just proved to them that even after we survived a war, if they want something they can have it”.
