Whitebooi eager to improve Judo ranking after World Champs setback

The Gqeberha-born athlete lost to Slovakian counterpart Marusa Stangar in Doha a month ago which affected her position. 

With the Paris event slowly approaching next year, this was a slight blow to her qualification record. 

"Going into the competition I was ranked number 29th, which was very good because just in the previous competition I got a really good result, and so I was very happy with my progress. The result that I got from that competition and I knew that going into World Champs there was a very high potential that I could reach the same result that I had from that competition. Unfortunately, it didn't happen and it was a very tough fight for me," she told SABC Sport.  

Whitebooi, who won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022, says she was surprised at how far she dropped.

"She's [Stangar] always up there in the final blocks. So, she's a very experienced fighter, but I still had the potential, I know I did have the potential to beat her in that fight. Just by losing that fight, I went down the world rankings, by six, seven spots, which is a lot of spots to work on. I thought it would be two or three." 

She is currently placed 38th in the world, and knowing her standards as well as what lies ahead, Whitebooi insists it’s not good enough. 

"It just shows me that in every competition that I go to, I need to be up in the top 16, otherwise I will lose a lot of points and it would just be bad for me at the end of the day to fight myself back up to the top 30."

Her schedule is tight over the coming weeks and Whitebooi’s next stop is Mongolia at the Ulaanbaatar Grand Slam, where 344 athletes representing 44 nations will gather for the judo competition.