Belgium’s road to Olympic gold: judo and taekwondo
At the last Olympics in Tokyo, Belgium had its most successful Games since 1948, with a total of seven medals. This year's Paris Olympics could be even better, with plenty of Belgian candidates in the running for a medal. Today, Belga English looks at judo and taekwondo.
Belgium has a long and rich tradition in judo. The heyday was the 1990s, with the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta especially successful. The judokas won four of the six Belgian medals that year: one gold, one silver and two bronze. The driving force behind this golden generation, coach Jean-Marie Dedecker, later went into politics and is currently mayor of the coastal town of Middelkerke.
Four medals is too much to ask of the current generation, but there is a real chance that the Belgian delegation will return with a gold medal from Paris. 27-year-old Matthias Casse is currently number one in the world in the under-81kg category. The Antwerp native became European champion in 2019 and world champion in 2021. He came home from the Tokyo Olympics with a bronze medal and now is hungry for more.
"I felt physically fine and my performance was definitely not bad, only the result was disappointing"
The final rehearsal for the Olympics, the World Championship in Abu Dhabi, however, didn’t go well. Casse lost in the third round, having reached the final four times in a row in previous years.
"But I felt physically fine and my performance was definitely not bad, only the result was disappointing,” he told Sporza. “I can learn from that for the Games." His ambition is clear: an Olympic title. “If you go for less than gold, it’s not worth leaving home," he said.
The other Belgian judokas in Paris are Jorre Verstraeten, Toma Nikiforov and Gabriella Willems. Verstraeten competes in the lightweight category, under 60kg, and recently won bronze at major international tournaments in Tel Aviv and Antalya.
Nikiforov participates in the under-100kg category and won gold at the European Championships in 2018 and 2021. Willems is a three-time Belgian champion in her middleweight category, under 70kg, and finished fifth at May's World Championships.
Rising star
In taekwondo, Belgium has less of a tradition, but the team is sending send a major medal contender to Paris: rising star Sarah Chaâri. She will be competing in the 57-67kg middleweight category of the sport, a traditional Korean martial art characterised by punching and kicking techniques.
.jpg "Sarah Chaâri celebrates her 2024 European title in Belgrade, Serbia © PHOTO IMAGO")
The 19-year-old, born in Charleroi, has already won two major titles in her young career. After becoming world champion in 2022 in Guadalajara, Mexico, she took the European title in May in Belgrade, Serbia. She beat France's Magda Wiet-Hénin, the reigning world champion and world number 1.
Remarkably, Chaâri combines her top sport career with medicine studies in Brussels. “It's just about managing and organising your time well, and occasionally putting your studies above your sport,” she told Sporza.
Matthias Casse (white) in the men's under-81kg final at the Paris Grand Slam judo tournament in February 2024 © PHOTO EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
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