The ten most searched judoka in the world

It is not surprising that, for the past three years, Teddy Riner is the most searched-for judoka in the world. The second most popular judoka on the web’s top 10 list is Ilias Iliadis. Although the Greek legend retired last year, his popularity is still huge. One of the fastest risers is Japan’s Shohei Ono, who definitely captured our hearts last year.

UFC star Ronda Rousey also remains one of the most oft-searched profiles, but is beginning to feel the pressure of judoka from Georgia: Avtandili Tchirkishvili and Beka Gviniashvili, specifically. Since the Olympics, Fabio Basile made the biggest gains on the internet, in social media, on television, in exposure, sponsor contracts, and attention. Basile took one year to “go with the flow” and he was right about that.

The Olympic Champion from Kosovo, Majlinda Kelmendi, is the most searched active female judoka. This is also not a surprise, but you can imagine if Kelmendi was living in France, which is considered to be one of the biggest judo nations in the world.

The biggest judo nation, Japan, still has Naohisa Takato as the popular man on the internet, but soon he may feel the competition of Mashu Baker, the current Olympic Champion, whose internet rocket was launched in August last year. Kaori Matsumoto is also close to the top ten.

Other names moving up the list are double Olympic Champion Kayla Harrison (of course), and the King of Judo Tadahiro Nomura, who will be an icon forever. All of the Olympic champions are rising fast on the net, but the list is based on JudoInside hits on the various profiles since 2014. Also in the top 20, Varlam Liparteliani, Krisztián Tóth, and Lukas Krpalek. Tina Trstenjak is the second most searched active female judoka at JudoInside, which is also logical given her domination over the last two years.

Soon, Georgii Zantaraia, another top 10 judoka, will be covered by JudoCrazy in the new JudoCrazy Magazine. Make sure you get it here.

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