Judo had a lot of flagbearers at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. This great honour to represent is this edition with an optional two athletes per country. Of the 206 competing countries, sixteen countries had a judoka as flagbearer. Kosovo even choose two judoka as their representatives.
2016 Olympic Champion U52kg Majlinda Kelmendi with Akil Gjakova the current European Champion for men U73kg. Kosovo competed for the first time at the Olympic Games in 2016 and now will have a stake in the medal table with five judoka, all battling for judo medals with serious chances. Another lightweight U52kg is Taciana Cesar who again carried the flag for her country Guinee Bissau. She originates from Brazil until 2013 and lives in Portugal.
U73kg Olympic finallist of 2016 Rustam Orujov represented Azerbaijan during the opening ceremony. In this category also Chamara Dharmawardana carries the flag for his country Sri Lanka.
The Republic of Kiribati showed by judoka Kinaua Biribo who fights U70kg. Kiyomi Watanabe of the Philippines also carried the flag and fight at day 4 of the Judo tournament U63kg. The same day that other flagbearers fights such as Brazil’s Ketleyn Quadros who won bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and now competes again U63kg. Top favourite in this category U63kg Clarisse Agbegnenou will carry the flag for France.
Sabiana Anestor was with the flag of Haiti, she will also fight at day 2 in the category U52kg.
Telmo Monteiro who carried the flag before for Portugal again represent her country. Monteiro won bronze at the 2016 Olympic Games. The 35 year old judo star will fight at day 3 U57kg at her fifth Olympic Games. She debuted in 2004 in Athens and was never successful at the Olympics until 2016.
Two heavyweights represent judo among the flagbearers. Bosnia and Herzegovina with Larisa Ceric to carry the flag with pride and Lithuania had Sandra Jablonskytė to shine at the opening ceremony. Judo is always well represented at the Olympic Games. Men’s heavyweight Ndiaye Mbagnick from Senegal at the ceremony. Another heavyweight carried the flag for Mongiolia, Duurenbayar Ulziibayar. Heavyweight Temur Rakhimov represented Tajikistan at the ceremony.
Middleweight Nacif Elias who used to fight for Brazil years ago now represents Lebanon with the flag. He fights at day four U81kg.
