Odette Giuffrida shows her potential in Tbilisi

Italian super lady Odette Giuffrida has unlimited potential on the world stage and the confident Italian won her second competition in a row at the Grand Prix in Tbilisi. In the final in Georgia she defeated Tashkent Grand Prix bronze medallist Gili Cohen of Israel. Giuffrida, 21, who won the Rome European Open in February and was World Judo Masters bronze medallist in 2015, was penalised for passivity before Cohen was penalised for a false attack and neither judoka could register a score after four minutes.

A further 55 seconds were required to separate the judoka as Giuffrida scored ippon from a textbook ippon seoi-nage. The win clearly meant everything to the young Italian who passionately sung her national anthem as she watched the Italian flag being raised the highest on the opposite side of the venue.

In the first semi-final Junior world silver medallist Mariam Janashvili (GEO) gave a valiant effort before the class and experience of Cohen told as the latter wrapped up a victory with a beautiful ko-uchi-gari for her second and match-winning waza-ari. In the second semi-final world number 10 Gulbadam Babamuratova (TKM) narrowly lost out to Giuffrida (ITA) by the smallest possible margin as the Turkmenistan judoka lost out by a single shido as both judoka finished with a yuko on the scorebard.

The first bronze medal was clinched by three-time world medallist Erika Miranda (BRA) - who was incredibly upstaged by homegrown starlet Janashvili in the quarter-finals – defeated Dusseldorf Grand Prix bronze medallist Babamuratova by a yuko. The second bronze medal was won by former Asian Championships bronze medallist Kim Mi-Ri (KOR) who defeated Janashvili for the final place on the medal podium. Kim was penalised with a shido for a gripping infringement before Janashvili took the lead with a yuko from an incredible ura-nage which appeared almost in slow motion as the game Georgian summoned every ounce of energy to lift her opponent through the air. The South Korean responded with a waza-ari and sat on that lead to earn her first IJF Grand Prix medal and was ecstatic after being officially awarded the contest.