SPORTS · MANIPUR

India’s first judo world champion

Linthoi Chanambam of Manipur won the World Cadet judo title at Sarajevo in 2022 — India’s first medal at any Judo World Championships — and has kept collecting Indian firsts since.

By The Young Achievers2 min readSources checked 22 October 2026

✓ Verified · Age 17

Linthoi Chanambam · 17 in the official award list, January 2024; no date of birth published

Filed under: Sports · Manipur · Judo

Linthoi Chanambam in her judogi, holding her World Junior Championships bronze medal and prize card, Lima 2025

Linthoi Chanambam with her bronze medal at the World Junior Championships, Lima, October 2025 · Photograph: International Judo Federation · Image source ↗

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The achievement

In August 2022, at the World Cadet Championships in Sarajevo, Linthoi Chanambam of Mayang Imphal, Manipur, won the women’s −57 kg title — defeating Brazil’s Bianca Reis in the final and becoming, in the International Judo Federation’s records, the first Indian ever to win a medal at a Judo World Championships at any age level. She had been training at the Inspire Institute of Sport in Karnataka since 2017, under coach Mamuka Kizilashvili.

On 22 January 2024 she received the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in the Sports category from President Droupadi Murmu.

Still collecting firsts

Linthoi’s record did not stop at the cadet title. In June 2025 she won gold at the Berlin Junior European Cup, and in October 2025 she took bronze at the World Junior Championships in Lima — both, like Sarajevo, Indian firsts recorded by the International Judo Federation.

Earlier titles include Asian Cadet gold at Bangkok in 2022 and national titles going back to a sub-junior national gold in 2018.

✳ A spark to explore

Linthoi left home at about ten to train in another state. What is the hardest thing about chasing a goal far from the people and places you know — and what makes athletes stay? That is a question from us, not part of her record.