Just like the men’s tournament also some exotic surprises in the women’s U70kg division with a semi final with athletes coming from four continents. Some stunning victories in the preliminaries.

Not Maria Portela but Maria Perez became the glorious winner of pool A. We warned the fans yesterday that weird things might happen in this Pan American pool with also Kelita Zupancic (CAN) who survived the first shift although she lost to Perez. Maria Perez is very experienced and she defeated World number one Portela. Perez’ growth is grounded in the IJF Training Center in Hungary and with her Spanish and Dominican friends she gained a lot of experiences.

Sanne van Dijke, the winner of Hohhot and second in Budapest lost to triple World Champion Yuri Alvear (COL). Each time the Dutch athletes in this class seemed to struggle with the experienced Colombian. 2018 World Champion Chizuru Arai knew how to deal with the Colombian and won the pool with ALvear still going for bronze.

Tall French Marie-Eve Gahie met the expectations. The winner of Zagreb and Tbilisi’s Grand Prix had a rather good draw, not the exciting athletes mentioned before, but she did have to concur Sally Conway on her way to the semi final. Gahie defeated the bronze medallists from Rio but Conway might still have a chance for bronze.

We had Pan America, we had Asia, Europe, Africa couldn’t stay behind. Assmaa Niang represents the fourth continent in the semi final. The sensational Moroccan defeated our favourite Yoko Ono. The winner of the Grand Slam Tokyo and GS Düsseldorf got surprised by Niang in the quarterfinal. No space for Bernholm, Matniyazova, Taeymans, Sook. Four continents is something Marius Vizer loves to see in the world championships day 5, a more than sensational than we could imagine.

Semi finals:

Perez vs Arai

Gahie vs Niang

Repechage:

Zupancic vs Alvear

Conway vs Ono