Grand Prix of Samsun Starts this Friday and Chibana and Penalber Are Competing Again.
The country will be represented by five other judokas . Besides Charles Chibana ( 66kg ), Vinicius Sakamoto Leal ( 66kg ) and Ketleyn Quadros ( 57kg ) compete on the first day .
The Grand Prix of Samsun begins this Friday and three Brazilians will be fighting : Vinicius Sakamoto Leal ( 66kg ) , Charles Chibana ( 66kg ) and Ketleyn Quadros ( 57kg ). On Saturday it\'s Victor Penalber ‘s ( 81kg ), Mariana Barros’s ( 63kg ) and Barbara Timo’s ( 70kg ) turn. The Brazilian representative who will fight on Sunday is Maria Suelen Altheman ( +78 kg ). The Grand Prix from Turkey will gather 356 athletes - 208 men and 148 women - from 45 countries.
The tournament marks Charles Chibana’s and Victor Penalber’s return to competitions. The two stood out in 2013 and are currently in the third place in their respective categories. Chibana, who had been summoned to the Grand Slam in Paris in February, could not make part of the delegation anymore because of an injury on his left elbow he got on the tournament’s eve. He had a quick recovery, he has been training hard recently and he is ready for his first competition of the year.
“I’m a little anxious to see how I \'m going to compete under the new rules. I hope to compete well after recovering from such a serious injury. \" Chibana said. He is behind the Japanese Masashi Ebinuma and the Mongolian Tumurkhuleg Davaadorj in the half lightweight category of the rankings.
Last year, Chibana was the champion at the Open Montevideo, silver –awarded at Open Buenos Aires, South American champion, bronze winner at the Pan American Championships , gold awarded at the San Salvador Open, gold awarded at the Moscow Grand Slam and he got the fifth position at the World Championship from Rio and the silver medal at the Grand Slam from Tokyo.
Victor Penalber has not been competing since the World Championship, held in September 2013 , due to a surgery on his right elbow. The injury is old but in a meeting with the doctors and the coaching staff it was decided that this was the best time to operate. Starting from May the score earned for the world ranking in May will still be worth in 2016, with a smaller percentage.
\" I took advantage of the training in Saquarema to pick up the pace . Now, I go to the Grand Prix very confident. Maybe the results from 2014 do not reflect what will happen in the Olympics, but it is vital starting the year with a good result in Turkey, “Penalber said. In the ranking he is behind the Georgian Avtandili Tchrikishvili and the French Loic Petri.
In 2013, Penalber came to lead the ranking among the half middleweight thanks to a good performance. He won the bronze at the Grand Slam from Paris, the gold in the Pan-American Championships, the bronze at the World Masters (competition that brings together the top 16 of the ranking), Military World champion and the fifth in the Grand Slam from Moscow.
The disputes in Yasar Dogu Sports Arena begin at five o\'clock in the morning and the last block enters at 11 am Brasilia time zone. Keys can be checked in the file attached. The delegation will stays in Samsun, located 400km north of the capital Ankara, until 31st when they come back to Brazil. After the Grand Prix of Samsun, the next appointment of the selection is the Pan-American Championships , which will be held in Guayaquil , Ecuador, on April 25th and 26th.
