Pareto back with bronze Endo takes gold U48kg

Olympic champion Paula Pareto of Argentina made her comeback at the Grand Prix in Zagreb with a bronze medal. After a period where she dedicated herself to her job as a doctor over the past months she continued to train for her comeback. Pareto was confronted by the new generation of athletes who dream of Tokyo 2020. Japanese Hiromi Endo was the one who defeated Pareto in the semi final U48kg.

Pareto is still motivated even if she has already checked all the boxes (world champion and Olympic champion) and that she is 31 years old. However, as it was expected, Japan could put a first athlete in the finals. Endo defeated Pareto (ARG) by penalty in the golden score, as Pareto was penalised with a shido for false attack. The first final of the day opposed the top seeded athlete of the category Milica Nikolic from Serbia against Endo who was not among the favourites.

In the final, the four first minutes of regular time were not enough for any of the athletes to score and only one shido was awarded to Nikolic but less than a minute was necessary to Endo to turn the Serbian on her back and to immobilise her for ippon, proving one more time that the Japanese school in groundwork is one of the strongest in the world.

Pareto, who was coming back to competition today in Zagreb after one year away from the IJF World Judo Tour, was qualified for the bronze medal contest against Anne-Sophie JURA of Belgium. Obviously, after her absence from top level judo, Pareto seemed to lack precision throughout the day. Despite repetitive attacks that failed to score, she has this quality that makes great champions and in spite of her small size, she deployed an energetic style on the tatami from the morning until that last bout. This energy coupled with the lack of precision did not allow her to score any advantage during the four minutes of regular time. At the same time, Anne-Sophie Jura was not able to take the advantage. Pareto had to wait for the golden score to finally be able to score with a drop-sode-tsuri-komi-goshi for waza-ari offering her a well-deserved and significant medal. We will probably see the Olympic champion on tatami in the coming months again.

The second bronze medal contest saw Lucile Duport of France qualified against Maria Siderot of Portugal. The French did not offer any chance to her opponent and after a swift groundwork session immobilised Siderot for ippon and a first bronze medal for the French delegation.