Brazil Gets Two Gold Medals and Three Other Awards on the First Day of the El Salvador Open

On Sunday there were three more Brazilians fighting for medals in the competition.

The Brazilian judokas competing in the El Salvador Open had a good performance on the first day of competitions held at the Palace of Sports called Carlos "The Famous" Hernandez. There were five medals, namely two gold, one silver and two bronze. There was a highlight on the extra-lightweight category represented by Allan Kuwabara and Luis Filipe Henriques who faced each other in the final. Kuwabara got a wazari and so he took the gold. Ricardo Santos Junior became the champion of the half-lightweight category by defeating Nathon Burns (GBR) with a yuko. Kethleyn Quadros (63kg) and Thelma Gomes (73kg) took the bronze and closed the Brazilian medals chart.

Allan Kuwabara defeated the Belgian Adlan Katchikaev in the first fight, after the Argentinian Hernan Birbrier and in the semifinals he defeated the Ecuadorian Lenin Preciado to reach the final. His fight succession was similar to Luiz Filipe Henriques’s who defeated the Peruvian Juan Postigos, one of the competition heads-keys, in the first fight and in the next one the Venezuelan Javier Guedez. In the semifinal, he defeated the American Aaron Kunihiro as well. In the same category, Rafael Barbosa was defeated in his second fight by Lenin Preciado.

Ricardo Santos Junior had to fight hard before reaching the decision. He defeated Julian Sancho from Costa Rican and the Australian Nathan Katz due to a difference of punishments. The first ippon was applied against the Puerto Rican Jeffrey Ruiz. In the semifinal, he made one wazari and a yuko against the British Aaron Turner. In the final, he managed to win by minimum score the fight against another British counterpart, Nathan Burns. Emanoel Oliveira, Luciano Loyola and Nicolas Santos fell in the second round.

The third medal won by the men’s team came from Thelmo Gomes. He defeated Adrian Gandia from Puerto Rico; Emmanuel Nartey from Ghana; and Alejandro Clara from Argentina. He was only stopped in the semifinals by the Canadian David Ancor. In the bronze contention, he managed to score a new victory, this time against the Canadian Etienne Briand by difference of punishments.

And the last medal of the day came from Ketleyn Quadros who defeated the Belgian Sandrine Billiet and the US Leilani Akiyama by ippon. But she fell in the semifinals against the Canadian Stefanie Tremblay, which would end to get the category’s gold. In the bronze contention, she passed her German counterpart Vivian Herrmann. Danielle Karla Oliveira was defeated by the Mexican Andrea Gutierrez.

On Sunday, Brazil will be represented by Samanta Soares (78kg), Eduardo Bettoni (90kg) and Lucas Samir Brito (100kg). The fight starts at 1:00 pm (Brasília time zone).