Zimbabwe: Pretorius Picks Up Gold in Tunisia

Promising Zimbabwean judoka Christi-Rose Pretorius left a mark at the Tunis Junior African Cup 2023 when she scooped a gold medal in the women’s +78kg weight division over the weekend in Tunisia.

Pretorius is one of the 10 Paris 2024 athletes’ scholarship recipients.

Judo Association of Zimbabwe president, Smart Deke, said the victory in Tunisia puts Pretorius in a good position for qualification.

“Christi-Rose, she actually had a very good performance during this last weekend on Saturday in Tunisia whereby she managed to get a gold medal being the first competition for her in qualifying events for 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

“Her performance shows that she still has a lot to offer and stands a very good chance to qualify for the Olympic Games that is going to be in Paris,” said Deke.

The 20-year-old Pretorius is expected to compete in another event on April 16 in Angola and is also pushing for participation at the 2023 World Judo Championships in Qatar, in May.

“So when she is going to be participating in all these events up to December. She will stand a very good chance to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games.

“So she is going out to try and utilise more chances of her participating in the African quota because she stands a very good chance to qualify, especially in the African events compared to the other international events that are qualifying events.

“So she is going to be trying and participate as much as possible in our African continent events for her to stand a chance to qualify. So the Luanda, Angola, event is also a qualifier,” said Deke.

There will be direct qualification, for each of the seven weight categories, the 17 highest ranked athletes on the International Judo Federation (IJF) World Ranking list of Olympic qualification period will be directly qualified, with a maximum of one athlete per NOC per weight division.

This applies for both men and women and a total of 238 athletes — 119 men and 119 women — are expected to qualify through this route.

An additional 100 athletes will be directly qualified as per the IJF World Ranking list of the Olympic qualification period based on continental representation.

Under this criteria, for each continent and based on the IJF World Ranking list of the Olympic qualification period, a continental ranking list will be created listing all the athletes from the relevant continent across all weight categories and genders according to their World Ranking points.

Athletes with the highest number of points on the continental ranking list will qualify according to continental quotas. Africa has a total of 24 quota places — 12 men and 12 women.

A maximum of one athlete per National Olympic Committee (NOC) can qualify through the continental qualification across all weight categories.

If a continent fail to use its full allocation, any remaining quota place will be allocated according to the IJF World Ranking list of the Olympic qualification period to the highest ranked athletes not yet qualified, irrespective of the continent, in the respective gender, respecting the maximum quota of one athlete per NOC.