The Girls Will Represent Brazil in the First Day of the Grand Slam of Baku
There will be three athletes competing this Friday in Azerbaijan. There are 12 Brazilian female judokas who will fight in the competition.
The Grand Slam of Baku, competition whose first place is worth 500 points in the world ranking, will be attended by 12 Brazilians: Nathália Brigida (48kg), Érika Miranda (52kg) and Rafaela Silva (57kg) will be the Brazilian representatives on the first day of the tournament from Azerbaijan. The Olympic champion Sarah Menezes was spared from the dispute in order to be 100% physically ready for the training of the women's team in Japan after participating in the Grand Slam.
"Sarah has no injury. As she is well-ranked and she has got important points such as the gold got in the Pan American Championships from Edmonton, we prefer to spare her from this competition in Baku and make her training in Japan a priority. She joined the delegation to Azerbaijan for logistics reasons, since they go straight from there to Tokyo, "said Ney Wilson, BJC’s Performance Director.
Brigida, who went straight from the Grand Prix Zagreb to Baku, has to wait for the winner of the clash between the German Sonja Wirth and the Moldavian Cristina Budescu. Erika Miranda (52kg) also begins in the second round. She waits for the winner of the confrontation between Angelica Delgado from the US and the Canadian Ecaterina Guica. And Rafaela Silva, seeded number one, will face the Russian Tatiana Kazenyuk.
On Saturday, May 9th, Mariana Silva (63kg), Ketleyn Quadros (63kg), Maria Portela (70kg), Barbara Timo (70kg), Marcelo Contini (73kg) and Leandro Guilheiro (81kg) will step on mats. On Sunday it's the turn of Rafael Buzacarini (100kg), Samanta Soares (78kg) and Rochelle Nunes (+ 78kg). The team is mostly made up of women because most of the men's team is taking part in a training camp held in Japan until May 14th. The full keys can be seen in the attached files.
Last year, there were no Brazilian representatives in Baku. In 2013, there were two gold medals won by Walter Santos (+ 100kg) and Maria Suelen Altheman (+ 78kg), a silver one by David Moura (+ 100kg) and a bronze awarded to Marcelo Contini (73kg). The first block starts at 2 am and ends at 9. SporTV 3 and Esporte Interativo broadcast the competition.
