Before she won her first World title in 2021, some pundits might not have taken Barbara Matic so seriously because she likes to post lots of glamorous pictures of herself on Instagram.
Never mind that she had won her first IJF World Tour gold as early as 2014 and by 2021 had already accumulated four IJF World Tour golds. Or that she was a double World Junior Champion. She wasn’t considered a top prospect for a World Senior title.
But in 2021, she surprised everyone by winning the World title, beating Japan’s stylish ippon-seoi-nage specialist Yoko Ono in the final. Naysayers felt that the World Championships that year was not so competitive because it was Olympic year and some top player chose to skip it.
She shut them up by winning another World title the following year, in 2022 in Tashkent, defeating her teammate Lara Cvjetko in the final. And for good measure, in 2024 she proceeded to win a European Championship and an Olympic gold medal, erasing any doubts about her capabilities.
Though she likes to doll herself up for social media pictures and goes by the nickname “Barbi” she is far from being just a pretty face or a dumb jock. Matic has a Masters’ degree in Electrical Engineering and in her free time gives lessons to children in mathematics and physics.
Having recently gotten married, Matic has not competed since winning Olympic gold. One would naturally assume she has decided to hang up her competition judogi. But that’s not the case. 
“I am still not retired,” she told the IJF, just last month. “I believe I could go again for LA28 but we also have Lara (Cvjetko) and that makes it more complicated and more difficult. It changes how the qualification would work for me. Since Paris, I have only fought in the Bundesliga. I’m really carrying mixed emotions. Sometimes I’m relieved not to be fighting and then in the next moment I’m sad to not be with the girls, competing at home.”
Cvjetko is currently No. 1 in the IJF World Rankings. She is a two-time World Silver Medalist and she has won five IJF World Tour gold medals. Crucially, she is 24 years old and still hungry while Matic has just turned 31, and has already won every major title in judo.
Whether she actually makes a comeback or not, one thing is for sure: Matic has already sealed her legacy as the greatest judoka to have ever come out of Croatia.
