THE BALL – Catarina Costa fights for bronze at the Portuguese Grand Prix (Judo)
Catarina Costa (-48 kg) regretted having, for the second consecutive year, secured a place in the final of the Portuguese Grand Prix, which started this Friday at Pavilhão de Almada. However, after an exhausting 11.14m fight and when the two judokas already had two punishments, they ended up giving in to the Kazakh Galiya Tynbayeva (52nd in the ranking), which prevented the runner-up of Europe (7th) ) can defend the title won a year ago in the race that started to mark the start of the World Tour.
However, the Académica de Coimbra judoka maintains her aspiration for the podium because in the final block, which starts at 5 pm, she will have the opportunity to discuss one of the two bronze medals against the Spanish Mireia Lapuerta Comas (20th), against whom she already fought twice in his career, having won one (2021) and lost the other (2020).
Catarina, 26 years old, who still in December won a bronze medal in the exclusive Masters in Jerusalem, was the only one of the 17 national judokas who competed today in the competition to have managed to reach the fights for access to the medals. Exempt from the 1st round because she was seeded, in the second she eliminated Tamar Malca (46th) with an ippon after 5.11m and in the quarterfinals she surpassed the Austrian Katharina Tanzer (22nd) with two wazaris.
In addition to Catarina, only four Portuguese reached the 9th place. These were the cases of Maria Siderot (-52 kg, 1 v-1 d), Mariana Máximo (-52 kg, 0 v-1 d), benefiting from being exempt from the opening round and from the 2nd round her opponent did not have attended, Emerson Silva (-60 kg, 1 v-1 d) and Ricardo Pires (-60 kg, 1 v-1 d).