Brazilian Women Win Three Medals on the First Day of Qingdao Grand Prix

Rafaela Silva wins silver and Milena Mendes and Tamires Crude gets the bronze

Brazil had six representatives on Wednesday (30/10) at Qingdao Grand Prix, China. The women were victorious again. The world champion Rafaela Silva took the silver in the lightweight category, after being defeated in the final by her Romanian counterpart Corina Caprioriu, silver medalist at the London Olympics 2012. In the same category, Tamires Crude, Rafaela’s sparring in the latter World Judo Championships, took the bronze by defeating another Romanian judoka, Loredana Ohai. And Milena Mendes (52kg) won the bronze after applying an ippon to the Romanian Andreea Chitu.

The dispute over the bronze was exciting because Milena was losing the confrontation by a yuko, but in the middle of the confrontation, she applied an ippon herself and guaranteed a place on the podium. Before that, she had defeated Yunying He ( CHN ) . In the key decision, she suffered a yuko and in less than a minute to the end of the fight, she had to attack her opponent and ended up suffering an ippon applied by the Russian Yulia Rizhova. In the repechage, she won by ippon over the Chinese Cancan Hu that enabled her to be bronze awarded.

Milena’s opponentin the fight for bronze was the defeater of another Brazilian in this category. Luana Pinheiro (52kg) started the competition well, filling the scoreboard (a yuko, a wazari and, finally, an ippon) in her first fight in China against Shuk Ki Tsui Hong Kong. But in the key decision, she could not resist the experienced athlete Andreea Chitu . In the repechage, she could not defeat the Chinese Jing Liu and therefore, she got in the seventh place.

The female lightweight category was close to a green and yellow decision. Tamires Crude and Rafaela Silva reached the semifinals, but both of them ended up losing to the silver medalist at the London Games, Corina Caprioriu. Tamires fell in the semifinals because of an ippon applied in less than a minute to the end of the fight. In the fight for bronze, the Romanian Loredana Ohai was the winner for having one punishment less than her opponent. Before, she had defeated Hsin - Yun Lee , Taipei by two yukos and the Mongolian Sumiya Dorjsuren by one.

Rafaela came to the final decision but she could not fit her strategy. She ended up being defeated by Caprioriu after suffering a punishment. She reached the final after winning over Ying Zhou by a yuko and the Russian Irina Zabludina by a wazari and a yuko.

Reagrding the men’s team, Raphael Miaque (60kg) was defeated in the first round by a yuko applied by the Chinese Yuxuan Zhao. Marcelo Fuzita (66kg) started well, applying an ippon to Yiu Leung Chui from Hong Kong, but then he could not resist to the Chinese Yifan Yang and lost by ippon.

On Thursday, there are more Brazilian athletes competing. In the up-to-73kg category, João Pedro Macedo faces Sun Sun Shuai (CHN) and Eduardo Katsuhiro fights first against Hemubatu Eri (CHN) while Vinicius Panini (81kg) faces the South-Korean Won Jun Jung. Concerning the women’s team, it will be represented by Ana Carla Grincevicus ( 63kg ) who fights first against Yamei Zhu ( CHN ),  Barbara Timo ( 70kg ) who waits for the winner of the contest between Tserenkhand Tsenduren ( MGL ) and Xiaoqing Liu ( CHN ) and Nadia Merli will face either Khulan Batbaatar ( MGL) or Jia Zhao ( CHN ).