Young judo medallists from Lithuania, Brazil and Burundi celebrated their achievements on the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal on Tuesday, with ambitions already extending past the competitors….
Young judo medallists from Lithuania, Brazil and Burundi celebrated their achievements on the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Senegal on Tuesday, with ambitions already extending past the competitors.
Lithuania’s Tajus Babaicenko and Brazil’s Clarisse Vallim claimed gold medals of their respective weight classes, whereas Burundi’s Don de Dieu Igiraneza secured bronze.
Babaicenko defeated Uzbekistan’s Jurabek Eshpulatov to win the lads’s under-100kg title, describing his efficiency as an unforgettable expertise.
“I was feeling amazing. I did, I think, the most beautiful throw today. I saw that there were 20 seconds left on the clock, and I tried to finish it up in a ne-waza,” he mentioned.
The Lithuanian has already turned his consideration to his subsequent competitors, the Junior World Championships in Uzbekistan later this month.
Vallim claimed the ladies’s under-78kg gold after defeating Russia’s Anastasiia Dobrovolskaia.
The Brazilian mentioned her long-term ambition was to grow to be an Olympic champion at senior degree, stressing that constant preparation mattered greater than focusing solely on medals.
“My biggest dream, my goal, is to become an adult Olympic champion. Instead of focusing only on the medal, I focus on what I need to do to achieve it. My goal is to keep preparing, to become more and more ready. And the results will follow,” she mentioned.
Burundi’s Igiraneza additionally celebrated a podium end after overcoming a deficit to defeat Tajikistan’s Asmar Sharif and declare bronze within the males’s under-100kg class.
The Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games opened on October 31, marking the primary Olympic sporting occasion to be hosted on African soil.
The competitors runs till November 13 and is predicted to function 2,655 athletes representing 204 National Olympic Committees, alongside a six-member Refugee Olympic Team making its Youth Olympic debut.
The Games convey collectively younger athletes from internationally, providing them a possibility to compete internationally whereas taking their first steps in the direction of senior-level Olympic ambitions.
