Catarina Costa

Catarina Costa developed a passion for sports from a very young age. She started with swimming, and tried tennis and football, but it was in judo that she found her true calling at 11. In just two years, she won her first national title in the youth category and has been part of the national team since 2011, becoming a national champion in all categories.

In 2014, she completed high school and enrolled in the Medicine program at the University of Coimbra, where she is currently in her sixth year. Balancing her studies with high-performance sports has been challenging, but Catarina believes this duality has helped her grow as an athlete and a person.

In 2018, she joined the senior main team and began her Olympic qualification for Tokyo, where she earned an Olympic diploma with a 5th-place finish. More recently, at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, she achieved 9th place. The experience of competing on the world’s biggest sporting stages, alongside the best, has deeply shaped her career and strengthened her determination to keep pursuing her goals.