Van Snick surprises the competition and defeats Olympic Champion

Charline van Snick is back after one year suspension. She claimed the Grand Prix of Dusseldorf with impressive victories on her competitors for Rio 2016. Van Snick made her comeback in style and gave a warning to Brazil, Japan, Mongolia and European rivals U48kg. ALso mentally she seems to be stronger than ever.

One could expect a final between the world champion of Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Munkhbat Urantsetseg (MGL), and the current Olympic champion, Brazilian Sarah Menezes. If the first smoothly reached the final, it was not the same for Menezes, who lost in her first fight against Shira RISHONY (ISR). The 24-year-old and still ranked world number two Brazilian is struggling to get back to her best since her title brilliantly won in London 2012.

In the final, Munkhbat was opposed to Charline Van SNICK (BEL) who made her way to the podium by defeating, in the second round, the reigning world champion, Japan’s Kondo Ami. Both athletes perfectly cancelled each other out for more than three minutes, but Munkhbat was less active than Van SNICK and was penalized with a single shido which offered the victory to the Belgian.

"I felt really good today, I'm so happy, I won against current World Champion Ami Kondo of Japan and in final I was better than Munkhbat (MGL). During the break period I was training in Paris, little bit of boxing and judo with personal coach, but we didn't do randori." - Van Snick said

Again Charline won gold in Dusseldorf with big support of her fans: - "Yes, it was my third time to win medal here, two time gold and one time silver. My family, boyfriend and friends from club were here, I really enjoyed today, they really motivate me. My next station will probably be Samsun Grand Prix, but not confirmed yet."

"Unfortunately I didn't have to much time today to watch the competition. I was trying to focus on my fights, but after all when I finished the competition, needed go to the doping control so again I didn't have time to watch the final block in Dusseldorf." - gold medalist Charline van Snick added after another succesful day in Germany.

The first bronze medal fight opposed the number 13 and 14 in the World Ranking List, respectively Monica UNGUREANU (ROU), winner of the Qingdao Grand Prix last year, and the bronze medallist of the last 2014 IJF event (Tokyo Grand Slam) JEONG Bo Kyeong (KOR). After the first minute, UNGUREANU was leading by a penalty, but this advantage was then reduced to nothing when she was also penalized. A few seconds later Kyeong scored with a shoulder movement combined with a leg attack for yuko, taking a more significant advantage. The Romanian, who was penalized a third time, was never able to put her opponent in danger and finally the first bronze medal of the competition went to JEONG Bo Kyeong.

Regularly present on the international podiums, Valentina Moscatt (ITA - Grand Slam Tyumen 2014: 3. place, Grand Prix Budapest 2014: 2. place, Grand Prix Astana 2014: 3. place) was again present in the final block of this first day of competition as she faced the two-time world champion, Asami Haruna (JPN - Tokyo 2010 and Paris 2011). After one minute and a half, Valentina MOSCATT was penalized with a first shido for a negative fighting attitude and again a few seconds later for false attack. The two penalties were enough for ASAMI to step on the podium.