New Star Yingnan MA Shines on the Chinese Flag

The top favourites had a little trouble today in the -52kg category, since it was necessary to go back to the 6th and 8th seeded athletes to find the two finalists: MA Yingnan (CHN) and MISATO Nakamura (JPN). Following the retirement of its golden generation from Beijing in 2008, China is seeking new flagship judoka to continue the development of judo in the country. That may be the case with MA Yingnan who ended at the bottom of the podium on the occasion of the last world championships in Chelyabinsk, but won the Ulaanbaatar and Qingdao Grand Prix in 2014. Nakamura reaches again her best level after her title at the 2011 world championships in Paris, where she topped the podium.

MA Yingnan totally controlled the final, blocking all her opponent’s attacks and being active enough to avoid being penalized. NAKAMURA was penalized once during the regular time, but this small penalty was enough for MA to win the first Grand Prix of the season, securing some precious points for the Olympic qualification.

The top seeded athlete of the competition, Andreea Chitu (ROU), still managed to reach again the final block of a major international competition. For the bronze medal she was opposed to Skrypnik Darya (BLR) who currently only had a 5th place at an IJF event on her record. Just after 1 minute and a half was necessary to Chitu to score a superb hip makikomi technique for a clear ippon.

The second bronze medal was disputed between Mareen KRAEH who had the opportunity to offer a first medal to the host country and the Israeli, Gili Cohen, winner of the first edition of the Tbilisi Grand Pris last year. When the two athletes entered the field of play, the noise level clearly increased in the stadium. After 30 seconds, when KRAEH scored a first yuko with a o-soto-gari, the public exploded for the first time. This explosion was followed by a second one a few seconds later when the German again scored a yuko with a sasae technique. It was not even the halfway point of the match. A few penalties later, KRAEH could finally celebrate her victory and the first medal for Germany.