Jeannine Meulemans

Jeannine Meulemans (born 30 March 1951 in Mechelen) was Belgium's first great international women's judo champion. She is 10-fold Belgian judo champion who nationally remained unbeaten, including in those contests she fought before weight classes were implemented. Internationally, the only contests she lost were due to injury or doubtful referee action. She is considered as the finest female technical judoka ever produced by Belgian judo. Close to her retirement, she won a bronze medal during the first Women's Judo World Championships in 1980 in New York.

Career Meulemans took up judo in 1966 at age 15 at the Judo and Jujutsu Academy Bushido-Kwai the oldest judo club in Belgium, founded and led by Felix De Smedt (1923–2012) In 1970 she obtained her shodan blackbelt with the Belgian Judo Federation (BJB).

Meulemans' competitive judo career started on 21 January 1973, when the Belgian Judo Federation organized its first women's judo tournament. applied jūji-gatame. from Austria. However, during the championship, Meulemans unexpectedly lost a match with kōka against the French Marie-Paule Panza, but won all of her other matches hence securing a bronze medal.

Today, the name of Meulemans and most other Belgian women's judo pioneers has been largely forgotten, and the current judo public is more familiar with the later generation of successful Belgian women's judo champions, such as Ingrid Berghmans (Olympic Champion, 6-fold World Champion, 7-fold European Champion, double Belgian National Champion), Ulla Werbrouck (7-fold European Champion and 7-fold Belgian National Champion), and Gella Vandecaveye (double World Champion, 7-fold European Champion, and 14-fold Belgian National Champion). with Meulemans recognised as the finest female Belgian judo technician to date. Their careers predated the start of Olympic women's judo and only barely overlapped with the very first Women's Judo World Championships.