Kerem Primo Claims World Judo Silver After Overcoming Injury Setbacks
Kerem Primo secured a silver medal at the World Judo Championships, overcoming a severe knee injury and a difficult transition to the senior division.
Some athletes achieve great success because everything falls into place at the right time. Others become great precisely because their journey insists on getting complicated. Kerem Primo belongs to the second group. At just 16, she was already tipped to be the next big thing in Israeli judo. In less than a month, she won both the European Cadet Championship and the European U21 Championship, defeating older rivals as if she had belonged there for years.
Overcoming Injuries and Setbacks
A few months later, she added a silver medal at the U21 World Championships. The message was clear: judoka Kerem Primo was on her way to the top. Yet in judo, as in life, the path from great promise to the summit is rarely straight. Her transition to the senior division was far less smooth. At her first World Championships in Tashkent 2022, she was stopped in the second round, and she failed to make an impact in two European Senior Championships.
"Sometimes an athlete doesn't need proof that they are already there. They only need proof that they are still on their way."
Then came the injury: a torn cruciate ligament in 2023 halted Primo precisely when she was supposed to make her breakthrough. Instead of fighting rivals, she had to fight her own body. Last year, she returned to competition, slowly rebuilding her form and capturing two bronze medals at the Austria Grand Prix and the Hungary Grand Slam before ultimately claiming the world silver.
A Triumph of Resilience
Today, Kerem Primo is a senior World Championship silver medalist at 21 years old. This medal tells a complete story of a young athlete who fell, struggled with doubts and surgeries, and knew how to rise again. On a day marked by memory and pain, Primo delivered a moment of profound national pride and resilience.
