Charles Chibana Is Gold Awarded and Rafaela Silva Gets the Bronze on the Second Judo Day in Toronto

Alex Pombo got injured in the bronze contention and finished on fifth. There will be four more judokas fighting on Monday.

With a beautiful show, Charles Chibana won the gold in the half- lightweight category at the Pan American Games Toronto 2015. The athlete who had a big family support in the stands (his father, mother, grandmother, aunt and cousin joined him at Hershey Centre) won his three fights by ippon and so he listened to the anthem when being at the top of the podium. Rafaela Silva stumbled in the semifinals, got recovered and secured the bronze. Alex Pombo was close to win the third place but he felt a knee injury and was defeated by the Canadian Arthur Margelidon. With two podiums, the judo team reached its fifth medal.

Before reaching the title, Chibana overcame the Salvadoran Gustavo Lopez Aguilera, the Venezuelan Sergio Mattey and the Canadian Antoine Bouchard in the end after having a hard time. With the title, Charles Chibana keeps the category’s tradition who won the third gold in a row.

"It is an honor to continue João Derly’s work, double world champion; and Leandro Cunha’s, my idol who trained with me. These are people who encouraged me enough to be able to represent this category, "Charles said. ”In the decision, I kept my tactics of waiting him doing something wrong. It happened, I paid a lot of attention to it and thus I managed to project him. "

Rafaela started winning the fight against the Argentinian Gabriela Narvaez by wazari. In the semifinal, she made a very balanced fight against the Canadian Beauchemin-Pinard, who eventually immobilized the athlete from Rio by ippon. In order to get the bronze by beating the Venezuelan Anriquelis Barrios she had a word with the coaching staff.

"Rosi told me I had ten more minutes to cry before getting recovered. The coaching staff and other athletes came to me and asked me where Rafaela they were used to watching was. I had to search within me that Rafaela who used to fight hard and that's how I got back in the bronze dispute. I stepped on tatamis more concentrated, I managed to perform my blow and I walked away with the victory, "said the 2013 world champion.

The judo competition continues on Monday with more four Brazilians fighting: Victor Penalber (81kg) and Mariana Silva (63kg) in the half-middleweight and Tiago Camilo (90kg) and Maria Portela (70kg) in the middleweight.