International combeack for British Alice Schlesinger

Alice Schlesinger is back, what a comeback, now for Great Britain for the former World medallist. In Düsseldorf of the eight top seeded athletes in the -63kg category, only two athletes were still present in the final block, since Tina TRSTENJAK (SLO), Edwige GWEND (ITA), Anne-Laure BELLARD (FRA), JOUNG Da-Woon ( KOR) and Junxia YANG (CHN) were prematurely eliminated from the competition. The two finalists were not unknown as TSEDEVSUREN Munkhzaya (MGL) had already stepped on the podium of a World Judo Tour event three times and Alice SCHLESINGER (GBR) was bronze medalist at the 2009 World Championships in Rotterdam but that was for Israel.

It took a little bit more than one minute for Alice SCHLESINGER to write the first line of her new career with Great Britain by scoring a clear ippon with an unstoppable uchi-mata on the edge of the fighting area. The silver medal of TSEDEVSUREN is the fourth one of the tournament for Mongolia.

The first bronze medal was disputed between Mariana SILVA (BRA), winner of the 2014 Panamerican Open in Buenos Aires, and TASHIRO Miku (JPN), bronze medalist at the last world championships in Russia. SILVA rapidly scored a yuko, but TASHIRO took again the lead with a waza-ari. Silva again scored a second yuko with a counter attack, but this was not enough to jump in front again. With one waza-ari against two yuko, TASHIRO Miku won the first bronze medal of the day.

The second third place was entirely European, since the Austrian Magdalena KRSSAKOVA opposed the German Martyna TRAJDOS who had failed in the semi-finals against Schlesinger. If most of the fight was led by the German with only one shido, she suddenly found a small opportunity to throw her opponent with ko-uchi-gari for waza-ari. Just before the end of the match, she added one yuko to the scoreboard to secure her third place.