Alice Bellandi strikes as Italy’s gold rush illuminates day three

Italian Alice Bellandi won her country’s second World Junior gold medal of the day and third overall as she beat uchi-mata specialist Shimmori Ryo (JPN) in the U70kg final. Bellandi took over the contest in golden score with a o-uchi-gari after 66 seconds of added time to send the Italian delegation wild in the stands.

Junior European Championships winner Bellandi cried with tears of joy and held her head in her hands as she could barely believe the scale of her accomplishment.

In the first semi-final Junior Pan American Championships gold medallist Ellen Santana (BRA) was second best against Bellandi who won the battle of the continental champions by a waza-ari score. In the second semi-final Shimmori defeated Junior European Championships silver medallist Margit de Voogd (NED). The Japanese youngster threw with a spinning uchi-mata for a waza-ari score and employed the same technique moments later for her second and match-winning waza-ari.

The first bronze medal was claimed by De Voogd who bested teammate and two-time Junior European Cup winner Donja Vos (NED) by a waza-ari score with 10 seconds left on the clock.    

The second bronze medal was won by Junior European Cup bronze medallist Candice Lebreton (FRA) over Santana. France boosted their medal column after Lebreton threw with a de-ashi-barai and followed up with osaekomi for 10 seconds for the final place on the podium. Number one seed Santana left with a fifth-place finish.