'Linthoi Always Fights': Inside The Mind Of India's Fearless 19-Year-Old Judoka

Last Updated:October 14, 2025, 07:00 IST

Linthoi Chanambam, India’s teenage judo sensation, talks medals, mindset, and how she fights for love of the sport, not just glory.

Linthoi Chanambam has her eyes set on Olympics. (Special Arrangement)

At 19, most athletes might temper their ambitions with diplomatic humility. Not Linthoi Chanambam. When India’s first-ever World Junior Championships medallist stood on the podium in Peru, bronze medal around her neck, she wasn’t listening to Japan’s national anthem filling the arena. Instead, she was singing India’s anthem in her mind.

“People will call it arrogant, but for me it’s confidence," she says, her voice carrying certainty. “Our flag, the Indian flag was rising up on that side in front of me and I was just imagining our national anthem in my mind. I was singing our national anthem."

There’s something disarming about Linthoi Chanambam when she talks about confidence versus arrogance. At 19, the judoka from Manipur has already rewritten history twice over. First, she became India’s first-ever judo world champion at the cadet level in 2022. Now, she’s India’s first medalist at the World Junior Championships.

Linthoi: Born With Confidence; Forged With Self Belief

But it’s not just what she’s accomplished – it’s how she talks about it that sets her apart.

“Personally, I don’t like bronze. I don’t like third place especially. And I didn’t win that many bronzes in my career. But at this time, it was something special and this is like a world championship. it’s different from other competitions, definitely," she says of her achievement in an exclusive interview with News18 Sports.

And this confidence is not manufactured – it is more intrinsic, evident when she says, “I always felt that I will be different from my friends, from everybody. I’ll be something, you know, something that hasn’t happened before."

And at a young age, she has forged that confidence with an uncompromising self-belief. “If I keep treating myself to best things, the best food, the best clothes or the best anything. If I treat myself all this time, it will become a habit for me to think about myself like that. ‘Oh, I’m the best. I always treat myself the best’. So I will never accept that I’m not the best."

There’s also a quiet assurance about Linthoi – the kind that feels inborn, yet clearly strengthened by where she comes from. Her village in Manipur breathes judo.

“People are crazy about judo, it’s very popular here," she says with a grin. “After my medal, it’s even more so. I think every home has judoka now."

In a state that’s produced Arjuna Awardees and Olympic judokas, confidence comes as naturally as breath. Her birthplace Mayang Imphal in Manipur is also where Arjuna Awardee Angom Anita Chanu, the 2013 Asian Championship bronze medallist, began her journey.

Growing up in Mayang Imphal, she was different from the start. “I’m kind of like… I’m a girl, but I behave like a boy," she explains matter-of-factly. “All my friends are boys only so I don’t have any girlfriends. I grew up like that."

And her family never made her feel constrained by gender expectations. She played football, tried boxing and finally settled on Judo. “They never made me feel like I’m a girl when I was growing up, so they treat me like a boy. Even now I can say they don’t think that I am a girl."

And probably this freedom has allowed her natural aggression to flourish. “I love that adrenaline. You know, I have a short temper and so I love it – it goes with that combat sport very well."

The Place That Changed Everything

At 11, Linthoi left home for the Inspire Institute of Sports after being spotted by Georgian coach Mamuka Kizilashvili. “I was a very small girl and I left home for the first time in my life," she recalls.

The world-class facility felt like ‘a different universe’ to the village girl. “There were other athletes over there and how the system was like the food, the accommodation, the facility – it was world class. It made me feel like I’m in heaven. I grew up there. All my teenage was there and it’s given me everything – Inspire Institute of Sports and JSW," she says with gratitude.

But it was a trip to Georgia in 2020 that would truly shape her future.

What was meant to be a one-month training stint became a nine-month odyssey when COVID struck. “I was 13 years old when I went to Georgia for the first time," she remembers. “That time I was not having a phone, I was not having an ATM card or money there, nothing."

Instead of feeling isolated, she found a second family. Her Georgian coach’s family – “his brother, his family, his son, his wife, his mother, his father"- treated her as their own. “I used to do like online classes, but I was not having my own phone. So, I used to use all the household phones. When someone is staying [at home], I used their phone."

This relationship would prove crucial when her career hit its lowest point.

When the Champion Fell: Rebuilt in Pain, Rooted in Faith

Success has a way of making failure feel catastrophic. After becoming India’s first cadet world champion in 2022 Linthoi was flying high, “Everybody was looking at me, everybody was expecting from me. Everybody wanted to know about me. And I was like, I was over the moon."

But her world shifted dramatically in 2023. While the World Championships she should have been competing in took place thousands of miles away, Linthoi underwent a knee surgery. “I was lying on the bed, not able to move and not able to go to the washroom by myself. I was in so much pain and last year I was winning, I was invincible."

The mental challenge proved more daunting than the physical recovery. “We might be strong, but we cannot be strong all the time. We have to talk about it. We have to cry about it," she remembers the struggle.

Yet even in this vulnerability, her competitive nature emerged. “Even here, I wanted to be the best. I wanted to recover first. I wanted to be the best here also. I will come out the best. I will come out like OK, after knee surgery, my knee will be the strongest "

She recovered, but the wins eluded her. “After losses, I used to lock myself in the room and I did not come out and I don’t want to see people. And I was thinking what people will say."

Her Georgian coach became her anchor. “He never made me feel that I became less even though I lost. He always had that faith in me that, you know, I can say that nobody believes in me more than he does."

And the support extended beyond just judo. “He took a big role in my life, not only my career but in my life." When she posted that emotional Instagram tribute after the World Junior Championship bronze medal, it was about this relationship. “How he handled that, how he made me feel like I’m still the best even after losses. It was because of that only I could come back and I could find myself again."

What emerges from talking to Linthoi is a young woman with unusual self-awareness, not just about who she is, but about her strengths and limitations. “I’m very aggressive and brutal during the fight. I’m not very tactical and very calm. I’m more kind of very short tempered and just go, go, go."

‘Linthoi Always Fights’

That same fiery streak fuels her every time she steps on the mat and before every bout, she reminds herself of her personal mantra.

“Linthoi always fights wherever she is, whatever arena she enters, she always fights. I tell myself all the time because I always fight. It doesn’t matter if I lose or win, I always fight. I always make opponents scared that, you know, ‘Oh, she’s very dangerous. I don’t want to fight next.'"

Despite her ‘brutal’ fighting style and philosophy, Linthoi embraces her feminine side with equal intensity. “I have very different two personalities.

“I’m very girly at the same time and I’m very brutal and kind of very masculine." And when she’s not training, “I put makeup on, I wear dresses. And this is yeah, for me, relaxation. And I love dancing."

This duality extends to how she wants to be perceived as well. “I give a very bad impression to people. I’m very short-tempered, but I’m very sensitive when it comes to, you know, I love to talk deeply with people and I’m very choosy with people."

However, her ultimate wish is simple: “I want people to think about me that ‘OK, she has a good heart.'"

The Dream Linthoi Won’t Speak Aloud

About her ultimate goal – the Olympics – she’s superstitious. “I don’t want to say it because it will go away from me. I feel like if I say that it will go away from me. This is my mentality. But I can say that I want that thing more than anything in my life."

Despite her recent historic achievement, she remains hungry. She had once said she wanted to find place for an Indian athlete in the World stage in Judo, and while she may well have done that, she isn’t one bit satisfied.

“I have big goals, I have big dreams, so it doesn’t matter… we dare to dream. This is how I feel. I feel that I have that ability to do much more."

That clarity came, in part, from pain. Her lowest point – lying in a hospital bed after surgery – turned into her most important realisation: “This is the place only Linthoi is the best… I love what I’m doing. I love sport, I love training, I love fighting… I will do it for my happiness, not for medals, not for anything. I will do this to enjoy myself. I’ll do it for my love."

It’s this authenticity – her refusal to soften her edges or apologise for her confidence that makes Linthoi Chanambam a compelling figure. In a sport where mental toughness often determines champions, she’s clearing out her own path: brutal on the mat, sensitive off it, always fighting, always honest about who she is and what she wants.

“Linthoi always fights," she repeats, like a promise to herself and a warning to everyone else. And at 19, with history already in her wake and bigger dreams ahead, she’s just getting started.

Vineet Ramakrishnan

Vineet R, an accomplished sports journalist with over 13 years of experience in digital media, currently serves as the Associate Editor - Sports at CricketNext and News18 Sports. With a specialization in cricke...Read More

Vineet R, an accomplished sports journalist with over 13 years of experience in digital media, currently serves as the Associate Editor - Sports at CricketNext and News18 Sports. With a specialization in cricke...

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