Mayra Aguiar eager to peak at Grand Slam Brazil

The Grand Slam is back in Brazil. The capital city Brasilia will host the Grand Slam for the first time since six years and is set to captivate the world from Sunday 6 to Tuesday 8 October. Following the 2013 World Championships in Rio de Janeiro, the last IJF event in the country, came the Rio 2016 Olympics. Brazil has hosted the World Championships three times (1965, 2007 and 2013), a Grand Slam, in Rio, on four occasions (2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and once a standalone World Team Championships in Salvador (2012).

A new era for Brazilian Judo, who are contracted to host the event in 2019 and 2020, will begin this weekend with a 56-strong aiming to cap their new event with a successful showing in their capital city.

One of the home heroes is Mayra Aguiar who targets her sixth Grand Slam title. Aguiar has a track record of delivering on the big occasion for her country. The Porto Alegre native won the World Championships in 2014 and 2017 and achieved bronze at the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Aguiar, 28, who is on the verge of qualifying for her fourth Olympics Games, has been longing for a home event on the IJF World Judo Tour.  “I'm very happy that Brazil will once again hosted a Grand Slam,” said the Brazilian hero. “I always like to fight at home, I like to fight for my home crowd.”

Aguiar is pleased by the strength of the U78kg field in Brasilia with France, Russia and Germany all electing to dispatch two judoka in the category.

“For me it's very good. The more fights I make, the better. It's almost a training, because I don't have many 78kg athletes here in Brazil to fight. The more I can compete and have strong athletes for me is always great. “I hope I can make a good competition. I am well prepared, I trained a lot for this competition and I hope I can feel happy knowing that I did my best.”

Aguiar has won Grand Slam gold on home soil before as she beat her arch-rival Kayla Harrison (USA) in 2011 having lost to the American in the 2010 Belo Horizonte World Cup final. The world number two picked up bronze in 2010 and won the same colour medal at the Rio Worlds in 2013 and the Rio Olympics in 2016.