Marti Malloy starts Olympic year with victory in Havana

In the women’s U57kg in Havana’s Grand Prix, once again the top seeded athlete, American Marti Malloy confirmed her position and entered the final after having defeated the Brazilian 2013 World Champion Rafaela Silva in the semi-final. In the final she was opposed to world number nine and European Games silver medallist Karakas Hedvig of Hungary.

Karakas produced one of the most beautiful ippons of the day in the semi-final when she executed a perfect ashi-waza technique within a few seconds against German Viola Waechter.

In the final, during the four minutes of regular time, both champions perfectly neutralised each other and were not capable of scoring. The same scenario took place during the golden score as the referee had to wait more than three minutes to give a first shido to Karakas, offering the victory to the American.

Malloy: “I was so pleased to go to Cuba and come back with a gold medal,” Malloy said. “I’m not letting the disappointments of 2015 get me down.” Malloy said a serious concussion and a defeat in at the Tokyo Grand Slam in December made 2015 a difficult year. Coming home with the gold from Cuba raised her ranking from 12 to six, essentially securing her Olympic spot. Malloy won a bronze medal in the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games. “I spend a lot of time every day thinking about the Olympics,” Malloy said. “It all pays off in Rio.”

For the next six months Malloy will be focused on training and competing around the world in preparation for the Olympics. “I’m really looking forward to finishing the Olympics and coming back to celebrate on her home in Whidbey,” Malloy said.

The first bronze medal fights opposed Nora Gjakova of Kosovo and Viola Waechter (GER). The first score came from Nora Gjakova, who with an ample o-uchi-gari took the lead with a waza-ari. This was enough to give her the victory and the bronze medal.

In the second bronze medal fight, Canadian Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard opposed Rafaela Silva (BRA). Visibly dominated by the strong grip of her opponent, Silva seemed incapable of accelerating. But she could count on a small mistake from the Canadian to throw her with a counterattack for waza-ari. If in U48kg Menezes looks back on top of her form, this is not yet the case for Silva, but the way to Rio is still full of opportunities and for sure the 2013 World Champion will do her best to run for gold in her home country on the occasion of the upcoming Olympic Games.