4 Gold Medals and Brazil Gets 19 Awards in the Open from Buenos Aires
The awarded Brazilian athletes were Eduardo Bettoni ( 90kg ) , Hugo Pessanha ( 100kg ) , Gabriel Santos ( +100 kg ) and Rochele Nunes ( +78 kg ) . This Sunday, a silver and two bronze medals were conquered.
The second and final day of the Pan American Open from Buenos Aires brought Brazil seven medals: four gold, one silver and two bronze. The awarded Brazilian athletes were Eduardo Bettoni ( 90kg ) , Hugo Pessanha ( 100kg ) , Gabriel Santos ( +100 kg ) and Rochele Nunes ( +78 kg ) . Samantha Soares (78kg) won silver and João Gabriel Schlittler ( 100kg ) and Horácio Antunes ( 100kg ) bronze. There were 19 total medals: eight gold, two silver and nine bronze. The country was on the top of the medal chart, followed by Britain who won only a gold medal.
On Saturday, the first day of competition, Eric Takabatake ( 60kg ), Marcelo Contini ( 73kg ), Eleudis Valentim ( 52kg ) and Mariana Silva ( 63kg ) were champions ; Gabriela Chibana ( 48kg ) was vice; and Jessica Henriques ( 48kg ), Raquel Silva ( 52kg ) , Milena Mendes ( 52kg ) , Manoella Costa ( 57kg ) , Allan Kuwabara ( 60kg ) , Daniel Santos ( 66kg ) and João Pedro Macedo ( 73kg ) won bronze. The competition was disputed by athletes from 16 countries.
On Sunday, some athletes had a new excellent outcome . Rochele Nunes ( +78 kg ) , who had already won gold in the Open de Montevideo on Tuesday , March 18th, fought three rounds to reach the title. She overcame the Argentinian Graciela Alvarez and Samantha da Cunha. In the decision, she dominated the fight against the Mexican Vanessa Zambotti and took the opportunity to apply to her opponent a wazari in the last minute of the fight.
“As I knew Zambotti’s fighting style well, I tried not to risk too much and force her to make a mistake. When she had already been punished three times, she had to come up and I took the opportunity. I come back to Brazil happy to have reached my goal: scoring two gold medals,\" Rochelle said.
\"I think the girls’ team reached their goal of rising to the podium. I think all of them showed how much they wished the medal. But if I had to mention a name, I\'d say it was Rochelle who dominated the opponent and did not put the gold at risk at any time, \"said Danille Zangrando, the coach of the women’s team in the South-American competitions.
The first gold of the day came with Eduardo Bettoni in the middleweight category. The athlete from Paraná who lives and trains in Belo Horizonte also repeated the performance from Open Montevideo. On the way to the medal, he had tough opponents such as the British Michael Horley and Gary Hall and the Frenchman Ludovic Gobert.
“After the title from Uruguay, I came to this competition much more confident and peaceful, aware of my skills and my goals. I think it was very good to gain experience and, I will keep focused and give my best in the next competitions as I did here, \" Bettoni said.
Another judoka who won the second gold in the same week was Hugo Pessanha . The hald heavyweight athlete took part in his fourth competition this year and won his first medals. On Sunday, he defeated the Canadian Marc Deschenes, the British Adam Hall, his compatriot Horácio Antunes in the semifinals and the experienced British Euan Burton in the decision. The latter was same opponent as in the final from Uruguay.
\"In the first final, I was a little worried and I prefered to be more reserved. Today, I chose fighting more and it worked. After the two performances from France and Austria which did not make me happy, I think I started to fix my mistakes; My goal for this year is being an active member within the National Team, overcome my adaptation stage and climb some positions in the ranking, \"said Pessanha who overcame Burton by ippon in the last 40 seconds of the final fight.
And to finalize the Brazilian participation in the Open from Buenos Aires, Gabriel Santos ( +100 kg ) won gold by defeating the heavy Russian Soslan Bostanov in the last fight of the competition. He had won the previous fights against the Argentinian Matias Del Sol, the Spanish David Fernandez and the Uruguayan Ignacio Caetano.
“This title was very important to me because I had injured myself in Montevideo and I even thought that I would not to compete today. But Priscila Marques and Roberta Mattar - physiotherapists of the team - worked very well and so I could fight. I managed to fix some mistakes I made in Montevideo and add score points for the ranking, \"said Gabriel Santos .
\"I think the athletes made good use of the opportunity they had and did their homework. We really expected that all athletes reached the podium and that\'s what happened, even fighting against with strong teams like France’s, Russia’s and England’s, “said Mario Sabino, the coach of men\'s team.
The next challenge of the Brazilian Team is the Grand Prix of Samsun in Turkey, held next weekend, 29th and 30th March. Brazil will be represented by Ketleyn Quadros ( 57kg ) , Mariana Barros ( 63kg ) , Barbara Timo ( 70kg ) , Maria Suelen Altheman ( +78 kg ) , Vinicius Sakamoto Leal ( 60kg ) , Charles Chibana ( 66kg ) and Victor Penalber ( 81kg ).
