Rafael Macedo Is Gold Awarded in the European Junior Cup Berlin
In the second and final day of the European Junior Cup Berlin held this Sunday, August 3rd, Brazil won one more medal, a gold one, brought by Rafael Macedo (81kg). On Saturday, the country had won five bronze awards with Larissa Farias (44kg/RJ), Tawany Silva (48kg/SP), Jessica Pereira (52kg/RJ), Vitor Hugo Carvalho (60kg/SP) and Gabriel Pinheiro (66kg/PE ).
The only medal of the day, Rafael Macedo had to make five fights to climb the highest place of the podium. In the qualifiers, he made three matches and won all of them by ippon (perfect stroke). The Brazilian defeated the Kazakh Salamat Zhurkabayev, the Canadian Jonah Burt and the German Tom Goerlitz.
In the semifinal, the judoka overcame the Russian Dmitry Zuev, by a wazari. The gold came only after a hard battle against the Georgian Levan Gugava in the final. The Brazilian won because of the number of punishment - the Georgian was punished three times, while Rafael Macedo two - and so he managed to bring home the gold medal.
"I feel very happy with this victory, the fights were very difficult but fortunately I managed to win them, now I have to train even more because many of the athletes who were here will also be in the World Junior Championships," the athlete said, waiting to be called to the world competition.
Gabriel Souza (100kg/SP), Isadora Pereira (78kg/MG) and Camilla Nogueira (+78 kg / MS) lost in the qualifiers and came back competing in the repechage. All three competed for the bronze medal, but they were defeated by the Russians Niyaz Ilyasov and Ekaterina Inozamtseva and, respectively, the Georgian Elene Kebadze.
Eduardo Santos (81kg/SP), Thiago Chiodi (90kg/SP), João Cesarino Silva (+100 kg / RS), Danielle Oliveira (63kg/RJ), Mariana Veiga (70kg/MS) and Sibilla Facchiolli (+78 kg / SP) were in action this Sunday, but they left earlier the competition. Check out the attached summaries.
The athletes were led by the Performance Director Kenji Saito, the coach assistant Marcelo Theotonio, the coaches Douglas Vieira and Andrea Berti, the psychologist Mariana Correa, the fitness trainer Armando Gonzalez and the physiotherapists Gustavo Braga and Ricardo Amadei.
World Judo Championship - the European Junior Cup Berlin, 6th Stage of the International Tour of this age category, was the last one worthing points for the national ranking, before being called to the World Junior Championship, which will be held between October 20th and 27th in Miami.
The athletes who reach 500 points in the world ranking are automatically qualified in the World Judo Championship. Those who fail to gather the required score, the technical committee will evaluate the possibility of the judokas’ participation. The updated rankings after the tournament in Berlin will be soon announced.
