Some athletes have a gap in their careers or they simply don’t fight a lot at Grand Prix level, either they are too big for that level, or too small. So it happens that athletes have a huge gap between their two Grand Prix victories. It took Priscilla Gneto 10 years to win Grand Prix gold after she had won her previous one in 2011. She pulverated the record that was just 5 years.
Some athletes have recognizable gaps in their careers like Christa Deguchi, Musa Mogushkov, Marcus Nyman, Abigel Joo. Some athletes simply had difficulties to follow up a success at Grand Prix level and it took them five years to regain such title like Victor Penalber, Natalie Powell, Lkhamdegd Purevjargal but today’s comeback of Priscilla Gneto is astonishing and she doubled the gap of the above mentioned athletes. Her last Grand Prix victory was in 2011 in Baku fighting U52kg. In fact she fights U57kg since 2017 but never was able to take a gold medal in a Grand Prix. She took a few bronze medals and only won gold at the Continental Open, one level lower. Today she accomplished a golden mission and the oldest of the two sisters is in fact just 30 years. In 2019 both won gold at the European Open in Luxembourg and the sisters were close to doing that again. But Astride lost her final U52kg to Belgian Amber Ryheul and had to wait for the family compensation by Priscilla.
Of course Priscilla is a renowned athlete who won Olympic bronze in 2012 and the European title in 2017 in her new category U57kg. So she has achieved a couple a major successes. She never won a Grand Slam but took silver in Baku and Tokyo in her career and medalled four times in Paris. This gold medal in Zagreb though means a lot. It’s not a good time to say farewell, she’s still got it.