Anna Santos is the first Brazilian heavyweight world champion

On Saturday was the fourth and last day of the individual competition at the World Judo Championships Cadets in Almaty. The heavyweights were under the spotlights, tall, strong and really powerful judoka. The sound we were looking for, that melodic explosion, was produced in bursts on the three tatamis of the enclosure as the matches took place. It is the sound of ippon and it sounds rampant.

Kazakhstan had won medals every day of the competition. This time the crowd had to wait until the last women category to see a local judoka getting another one. It happened in the +70kg category. Madina Paragulgova qualified to the last match of the category after defeating France Liz Ngelebeya in the very last second of the semifinals, starring the most exciting come back of the competition since the french was leading with one waza-ari. Paragulgova scored waza-ari only two seconds away from the end and won by osae-komi on the gong. It was time to rest because Anna Santos was waiting in the final. The Brazilian and world number one was also in a great shape as we could see in her previous match where she eliminated Japan Yamaki Ion by ippon.

In the final, the crowd went crazy. Santos started well and pushed strong but Paragulgova placed a nice counterattack to score waza-ari. Ten seconds later came the cold shower from the brazilian. Santos scored ippon and left the crowd speechless.

Hilal Ozturk showed one more time that Turkey is building a strong team full of talent. After two gold medals in the previous day, Ozturk won the bronze against France Liz Ngelebeya.

The second bronze medal flew to Japan. Yamaki Ion was expected to be seen in the final but, after losing against Anna Santos in semifinals, she concluded her tournament by defeating Italy Erica Simonetti with osae-komi.