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Gabriella Willems and Christian Parlati on the beach, expecting their baby, 100Judo graphic

Willems and Parlati prepare for a new arrival

Belgian Olympic bronze medallist Gabriella Willems and Italian judoka Christian Parlati are expecting a baby. The couple shared the news in a joint Instagram post, a sunset photo on the beach with a caption of just one word and an infinity sign, “Family”, and the judo world answered with a stream of hearts, from Clarisse Agbegnenou to Parlati’s Italian teammate Gennaro Pirelli.

A Belgian and Italian judo family

Few couples in judo bring together two national traditions as completely as these two. Gabriella Willems grew up in Barchon in the province of Liège and won Olympic bronze at -70kg in Paris in 2024, beating Sanne van Dijke in the medal contest. It was the high point of a career that has asked a lot of her: she tore the cruciate ligament in her right knee at the Grand Slam in Antalya in 2021, which cost her the Tokyo Games, again in 2023, and for a third time early in 2026, as 100Judo reported in February.

Christian Parlati, born in Naples in January 1998, was junior world champion in Nassau in 2018, took world silver at -90kg in Tashkent in 2022 and became European champion in Podgorica in 2025. The couple live in Naples, where both train at the Nippon Club that the Parlati family founded and still runs, so the new arrival will grow up in a house, and a dojo, where judo is the family business.

From Cala Moresca to the beach

The pair married on 17 January 2026 and shared their wedding photos from Cala Moresca a few days later, with friends from both judo teams among the first to congratulate them. The beach photo they shared in November completes a year that started with a wedding and continued with a long rehabilitation for Willems, and it ends with the best news either of them could have shared.

Everything else, from the due date to the question of whether the baby will one day choose a Belgian or an Italian judogi, belongs to the couple. For now 100Judo simply joins the long line of well-wishers: congratulations to Gabriella and Christian on their sweetest victory.