Victor Penalber Gets the Fifth Place in the Grand Slam of Tokyo

Luciano Correa (100kg), Rafael Silva (+ 100kg) and David Moura (+ 100kg) were the last Brazilian athletes who participated in the competition from Japan.

Brazil was very close to get one more medal in the Grand Slam of Tokyo. Victor Penalber had a good performance and reached the bronze contention. However, in a tough fight against Avtandili Tchrikishvili (GEO), world number one, he was defeated and finished in fifth place. The other Brazilian was Alex Pombo who could not win the fight against the Japanese Hiroyuki Akimoto and did not go further. Brazil ended its participation in Japan on Saturday night - the first block started at 10:00 pm and the final block at 04:00 am on Sunday morning - with Luciano Correa (100kg), Rafael Silva (+ 100kg) and David Moura (+ 100kg).

"I had some good fights, but I didn’t quite reflect on some of my movements while I was fighting and so, I missed the medal," Victor said.

Victor Penalber started defeating the Mongolian Dagvasuren Nyamsuren by ippon. Then, he continued applying a wazari and an ippon on the Japanese Hayato Watanabe.In the quarterfinals, he could not defeat Sergiu Toma, UAE, and lost due to a yuko and a punishment. Trying to revert the score, he ended up suffering ippon and went to the repechage, where he defeated the Belgian Joachim Bottieau in golden score, because the opponent was punished.

In the contention for medal, he had a harsh fight against the Georgian Avtandili Tchrikishvili, world number one. The fight was very balanced, but in the last one minute and a half, Penalber was defeated by ippon.