AFP writes about Kosovo: Peja, the city that produces world jungle champions

The AFP also made a description of the city that produces only champions in the Judo sport and the difficult conditions with which they have been trained for years.

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Kosovo's new and small nation has emerged as a jungle power in the world, its sudden success led by small Olympic champion Majlinda Kelmendi.

Eleven years after she gained independence from Serbia and its first summer Olympics, Kelmendi's success in Rio in 2016 enabled Kosovo and its two million people to defeat her older brother Albania, who has never won an Olympic medal in any sport. Kelmendi goes in search of more gold medals as he now competes at the Tokyo World Championships on Sunday. The history of Judo's success in Kosovo was created by coach Driton “Tony” Kuka in the small town of Peja, where he founded a jungle club with his brothers.

A training room with a leaky roof did not prevent the club from producing samples, authorities only recently decided to finance its renovation. “I'm sure if it wasn't for Tony, Kosovo wouldn't have all these medals today, especially Olympic gold”, Kelmendi, 28, told AFP.

She became a national hero thanks to her competitions in Rio, which received world titles in 2013 and 2014. In the poor country in the Balkans, where football is the top sport, Judo athletes look forward to being at the top of the list of financial aid from authorities. They receive only 250,000 euros (281,000 dollars) annually, " said Kuka, "from the entire sports government budget of 17m euros.

Revenge for the history of Kelmendi, which also holds European titles and prevailed at the European Games in Minsk this year, is the brightest star of the Kukes team. But she's not alone anymore.

Now he runs a group whose members aspire to world titles. Distria Krasniqi, 25, is a young world champion and Nora Gjakova, 28, won the bronze medal in European championships. In various age categories, we now have 14 jungles that have reached the highest level,” said 48-year-old Kuka. Most come from the same neighborhood. By creating such a powerful team, Kuka is taking revenge on Kosovo's troubled history, which had a great fortune in his career.

In 1992, as Barcelona's Olympic Games approach, Kuka was the best Yugoslav jungle, the men's category under 71kg, and one of the most popular for medals. But since 1989, the situation was tense in Kosovo, the ethnic Albanian majority was under the yoke of then-strong Belgrade man Slobodan Milosevic.

Within a broader movement of civic resistance, orchestrated by “the nation's father” Ibrahim Rugova, ethnic Albanian athletes, left the Yugoslav teams. My “Olympic dream was shattered,” recalled Kuka, adding that he had defeated all Barcelona medalists in the competition.

Training in ruins at the end of the 1998-1999 war, when NATO air strikes forced Belgrade to withdraw its troops from Kosovo, Kuka founded his club in Aslan Ceshme, a slum that residents found largely destroyed when they returned. Their children were his first students.

Kosovo was in ruins and children were traumatized”, he recalled. Kelmendi, who lived “100m from the hall”, was among those who joined the <xx4>, the coach recalled. I knew nothing about this sport, but I was happy,” said Kelmendi. We children had nothing else to do. Kelmendi's” commitments to winning world and Olympic titles led its fellow countrymen to the streets to celebrate. “We have turned children who have suffered from war into world champions, measuring themselves against countries like France, Japan or Brazil that have thousands of jungles available to build their teams,” said Kuka.

For Kosovo-based sports journalist Edsim Magera, Kelmendi “is the country's greatest success story, not just in sport”.

There is no title that has escaped these Judists, who come from a single neighborhood”, he said. Their success is contagious because Peja now has five Judo clubs, with up to 500 people in training. “Warriors” from the Czech Aslan now want to invade Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics. Gjakova said he planned to go to Japan “to crown all this work with a” medal . Kuka thinks his group's success has helped it fulfill its war-ridden Olympic ambitions. My dream, which was half rotten, is now 100 per cent,” he said.