Ana Perez Box challenges history and Ai Shishime

Spain is on fire with two medals at the first day and a third medal at the second day as Ana Perez Box qualified for the final for women U52kg. The Spaniard gave a strong impression in Budapest at the World Championships and will grab a huge number of points that might place her among the seeded players in Tokyo. Her opponent in the final U52kg will be 2017 World Champion Ai Shishime.

Ai Shishime of Japan has good memories of Budapest where she took her world title in 2017. Now she is heading for her second attempt after she’d won all colours in a row in 2017-2019.

Without reigning World Champion Uta Abe and some of the top Europeans Buchard and Olympic finallists Giuffrida and Kelmendi, Shishime easily resisted the field with her excellent groundwork.

The U52kg weight category had 45 athletes in the field and world number 3 Shishime Ai (JPN) confirmed her position as top seed. In the second round she defeated Soumiya Iraoui of Morocco, who in the first round defeated double world silver medallist, Andreea Chitu (ROU).

Shishime also ruined a first gold medal hope for the host country by beating Pupp Reka (HUN), before winning against Joana Ramos (POR).

Even if Ana Perez Box (ESP) was among the top seeded athletes of the category, she was not one of the top favourites, but at twelfth place on the World Ranking List and winning a bronze medal in Kazan a few weeks ago, the Spanish athlete had what one calls 'a perfect day at the office,’ with wins against Katelyn Jarrell (USA), Anastasia Polikarpova (RJF), Lkhagvasuren Sosorbaram (MGL) and then Fabienne Kocher (SUI) in the semi-final. Perez Box's preliminary phase was successful, but more broadly it was also nice to see that work pays off. The 25 year old judoka, whose preferred technique is uchi-mata, finished at the foot of the podium in April at the European Championships, but this time, this is the world level and a final already means so much. Her silver medal is special.

Some of the top favourites got surprised on this strong field. Evelyne Tschopp lost to 39-year old sode maki komi specialist Joana Ramos who qualified for the bronze medal match after an easy win against Amber Ryheul. The Belgian surprised by beating the exhausted Gneto but wasn’t fresh anymore for the battle with Ramos.

Ryheul’s compatriot Charline van Snick lost in her first bout in the morning. Ana Perez Box won that pool with Sosorbaram Lkhagvasuren (MGL) also in the quarterfinal. She lost the repechage to Gefen Primo of Israel who gave a strong impression and defeated Pimenta but lost to Swiss Fabienne Kocher in the quarter final. Kocher made an impact and might even look to Switzerland now as she outperformed Tschopp today. Kocher will now fight Joana Ramos and there’s not a better chance to take a medal… but the experience of Ramos will be fully alerted for Kocher. Kocher once defeated her in 2018 in Cancun, but Ramos is on her best now, no comparison to 2018.

The second bronze bout will be between Diyora Keldiyorova (UZB) and Gefen Primo. Although Primo defeated her in Tel Aviv it will be youngster Keldiyorova who is poised to win this one as she showed excellent judo in the Laszlo Papp Arena. Guided by Ilias Iliadis she did everything well although she lost the semis against Shishime Ai…on the ground again.

Another top favourite lost too early, Chelsie Giles lost to Kocher. Pimenta was expected a bit higher but couldn’t escape from Primo who is heading for Tokyo as Gili Cohen didn’t survive round one. Also Jeong Bo-Kyeong got surprised by Belgian talent Ryheul who finished seventh.

Hungarian Reka Pupp survived the majority of challenges in the pool of death but couldn’t resist Shishime. The draw was essential as always for some talents. Kocher and Keldiyorova are favourite for the bronze medal, Ai Shishime for the gold. The last female Spanish World Champion was Isabel Fernandez in 1997, dream may come true. Shishime is a superior dreamcatcher though.