Paula Pareto keeps honour up for Argentina with unchallenged gold

Argentine Paula Pareto may be a little older, but for sure she is much more experienced and still clever enough to take the gold at the Grand Prix Samsun. In the final the Brazilian faced, world number four and silver medallist of the last World Championships in Russia, Paula PARETO (ARG). In the same half of the draw as the world silver medallist, the current Olympic champion, Sarah MENEZES, could not do better than to qualify for the bronze final after having been beaten by Monica UNGUREANU (ROU) in the preliminary rounds.

The first surprise of the day came from the early defeat of world number one, MUNKHBAT Urantsetseg (MGL), eliminated in the first round by the Polish judoka, Ewa KONIECZNY, whose best result to date was a bronze medal in Rijeka in 2013. KONIECZNY was then defeated by the future finalist Nathalia BRIGIDA (BRA).  

BRIGIDA was penalized with a first shido when she stepped outside of the fighting area after a few seconds. Just before the first minute, Pareto who looked dominated by the long arms of BRIGIDA, engaged a right handed drop-sode-tsuri-komi-goshi for a beautiful waza-ari. A few strategic penalties later, the Argentinian could finally let her joy explode, confirming that she is one of the best judoka in the world in this weight category.

After her win against the Olympic champion MENEZES, Monica UNGUREANU, winner of the Qingdao Grand Prix in 2014, conceded the victory in the semi-finals and then was opposed to the double African champion, Taciana LIMA (GBS), for a place on the podium. After one minute and fifteen seconds, the scoreboard was already showing three yuko, one for UNGUREANU and two for LIMA, who twice scored with a beautiful o-uchi-gari, one in the middle of the tatami, the other on the edge of the fighting area. LIMA was then penalised twice with shidos for false attacks. Only twenty seconds were remaining when she was penalised again getting very close to the disqualification, but the athlete from Guinea Bissau could maintain her advantage to win a beautiful bronze medal.

For the second bronze medal, a misfiring Sarah MENEZES was opposed to the local athlete, Dilara LOKMANHEKIM (TUR), who until the semi-final, where she was defeated by PARETO, had achieved victories throughout the preliminary rounds in front of her public. After a first strong attempt, MENEZES tried to escape the counterattack of her opponent but was penalised for a false attack with a shido, giving the smallest advantage to LOKMANHEKIM, but enough to generate and audible approval from the home fans. A little later the Turkish athlete was penalised for passivity to restore parity. A little more than one minute was remaining, when MENEZES and LOKMANHEKIM launched several simultaneous attacks, which ended with osaekomi just outside of the competition area in favour of the Brazilian. However, MENEZES, was able to maintain the grip only for seven seconds and not long enough to score. The fight seemed to end with this tight score when one second before the final gong, MENEZES launched a last false attack for a shido, offering the victory to LOKMANHEKIM for a first medal for the home delegation.