Judoka Catarina Costa ‘defends’ gold at the Portuguese Grand Prix — DNOTICIAS.PT
Judoka Catarina Costa, European runner-up at -48 kg, defends the gold medal won in the last year of the competition at the Portuguese Grand Prix, in which Jorge Fonseca and Telma Monteiro are major casualties.
The two-time world champion in -100 kg in 2019 and 2021, who also won gold in 2022 at the first edition of the Grand Prix on Portuguese soil, and the Benfica judoka still recovered from injuries, which already failed them, in December, the Masters from mod.
The competition at the Municipal Sports Complex of the City of Almada, to be held between Friday and Sunday, marks the start of this year’s international circuit and has 37 registered Portuguese judokas, 20 in the men’s and 17 in the women’s.
With Jorge Fonseca and Telma Monteiro out, Catarina Costa (-48 kg), Bárbara Timo (-63 kg), Patrícia Sampaio (-78 kg), Rochele Nunes (+78 kg) and Anri Egutidze (-81 kg ), as well as Rodrigo Lopes (-60 kg) and Joana Diogo (-52 kg), all from the Olympic project.
From this group, the Portuguese team will have Catarina Costa (first), Joana Diogo (sixth), who won bronze in 2022, Bárbara Timo (third), Patrícia Sampaio (sixth) and Rochele Nunes (second) as top seed in the respective categories.
In the men’s category, Rodrigo Lopes is the highest ranked, as 12th entered and 31st in the world ranking at -60 kg, while Anri Egutidze will, this time, return to -81 kg, a category in which he competes until the Games Tokyo Olympics, then opting to go up to -90 kg.
The Benfica judoka opted, in agreement with the coaches, to return to the lower weight category, and it will be there, at a time when he is 56th in the world ranking, that he will make up for the qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
In Almada, the return to the international stage of Célio Dias also stands out, who was at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, at -90 kg, but went through a difficult phase in life, with a diagnosis of depression and schizophrenia, returning recently to judo.
In December, the judoka became national champion in -100 kg, the category in which he will compete in this Grand Prix.
With 579 entries, but without a ‘thick slice’ of world top-10 judokas, taking into account that the competition precedes a renowned Grand Slam in Paris by a week, the athletes’ main option, Almada is an opportunity for some second lines in the race for points in the Olympic qualification.
Of the 14 categories, the British Chelsie Giles (-52 kg) and the Georgian Ília Sulamanidze (-100 kg) are the only world leaders to be in competition, which also expects the world champion Rafaela Silva (-57 kg) and the Olympic champion from + 100 kg Lukas Krpalek, but entered in -100 kg.
Portuguese judokas enrolled in the ‘Grand Prix’ of Portugal, in Almada:
Men (20):
-60kg: Emerson Silva, Rodrigo Lopes, Ricardo Pires and Miguel Pisco.
-66kg: Nuno Martins, Bernardo Tralhão, Miguel Gago and Bruno Bento.
-73 kg: Otari Kvantidze, João Crisóstomo and Saba Danelia.
-81kg: Diogo Rangel, Manuel Rodrigues, Anri Egutidze and João Fernando.
-90kg: Ricardo Serrão.
-100kg: Guilherme Silva, Célio Dias and Diogo Brites.
+100kg: Vasco Rompão.
Female (17):
-48kg: Catarina Costa and Raquel Brito.
-52kg: Mariana Máximo, Joana Diogo and Maria Siderot.
-57kg: Ana Agulhas, Teresa Trindade and Raquel Brás.
-63kg: Bárbara Timo and Wilsa Gomes.
-70kg: Joana Crisóstomo, Letícia Martins and Tais Pina
-78kg: Patrícia Sampaio, Carolina Paiva and Beatriz Moreira.
+78kg: Rochele Nunes.