THE BALL – Portuguese women fighting for three medals at the Portugal Grand Prix (Judo)
Catarina Costa (-48kg) in the final, Telma Monteiro (-57kg) fights for bronze, as well as Maria Siderot and Joana Diogo in a national duel (-52kg)
With Catarina Costa (-48 kg) French Malenie Vieu (53rd in the ranking) for wazari In the semi-final, the national team secured a medal on the first day of the debut of the Grand Prix de Portugal, which started this morning at the Almada Pavilion and marks the start of the World Tour in 2022. A fight for gold that will take place from from 5 pm against South Korean Hyyeong Lee (89th)
Exempt from the opening round for being seeded (12th), along the journey by the judoka of Académica de Coimbra, who was 5th in the Tokyo Games, successively eliminated the Uzbek Khalimajon Kurbonova (71st) and already in the quarter finals the Italian Asia Avanzato (63rd), both for wazari.
As for Telma Monteiro (-57 kg), this time the Benfica Olympian will fight for bronze after having lost in the half, after 1.32 of extra time and when both were with two shidos, against the Dutch Pleuni Cornelisse (51st), 14 years younger.
Also exempted from the first fight for being seed (6th), in the second Telma, 36, eliminating the Korean Jaeryeong Kim in 47 seconds. In the confrontation for the last step on the podium, the six-time European champion will face the French Martha Fawaz (91st).
But there is still a second medal recognized immediately, this one of bronze at -52 kg, will come out of the fight between Maria Siderot and Joana Diogo.
Joana (67th) was close to being present in the final, but lost, in the semi-finals and for ippon, against a Kosovar Distria Krasniqi (38th). Until then, the athlete from JC Coimbra had eliminated, for wazari, also Kosovar Erza Muminoviq (58th) and one of the main favorites, the Swiss Fabienne Kocher (6th), in this case by ippon.
As for Siderot, the first victory of the day comes against the Swiss Binta Ndiaye (60th), by punishment, and after an exhausting 7.06 minutes of combat. Resistance that was once again demanded of the sportsman in the second round, where he only scored the ippon Tinka fights Australia’s Easton (51) after 8.25m.
Maria, who this season went from -48 kg to -52 kg, something Joana Diogo already did two years ago, would end up being stopped in the quarter-finals by the Spanish Estrella Lopez (21st), with a ippon 45 minutes from the end.
In the men’s sector, highlight goes to Gonçalo Oliveira (-66 kg), who in his debut in a Grand Prix and in a great competition for the senior team got 7th place with 2 v- 2 d.
Initially, Gonçalo surpassed the Spaniard Adrian Nieto (72nd) by ippon, to then clap hands off the bench with one of the ippons of the round by designing the American Ari Berliner (56th). The first setback in the competition will take place in the final quarters where the leader of the south of the world found in the Baul Na ranking, which is not on his resume, he has a silver medal at the Tokyo Games and gold at the 2015 Worlds.
Repescado, the JC Lisboa athlete, was definitively selected from the competition after losing, for ippon, against the Japanese Yamato Fukuda.