How Alice Bellandi beat a World Champion newaza specialist

Italy’s Alice Bellandi Japan’s and Shori Hamada had never fought at an IJF event before but they were drawn together in the preliminary rounds of the recently-concluded Hungary Grand Slam. Most pundits would have surely chosen Hamada over Bellandi. Hamada is a former World Champion and considered one of the foremost newaza specialists in world judo today.

Bellandi is a rising star but up to that point, she had not even won a single IJF World Tour gold medal yet.

But right from the start, it was clear who was the dominant player. Bellandi attacked first, with an osoto-gari that knocked Hamada down but it was no score.

Most Japanese female players are very good at newaza but Hamada is exceptional. Unlike her teammates who tend to go for osaekomi turnovers only, Hamada is also adept at strangles and armlocks.

And it was with a strangle that was her first serious attempt at catching Bellandi on the ground. Bellandi had her lapel over her mouth so there was no way Hamada could have gotten the strangle. It took the referee a little while to notice that before calling matte, something Bellandi complained about. But a choke was averted.

Bellandi got up and after a fierce exchange of gripping, was able to get a dominant grip over Hamada. She launched another osoto-gari attack and this time it scored waza-ari.

Hamada then tried desperately to get Bellandi into groundwork. She knocked her down with a tai-otoshi like attack and went straight for an armlock. But Bellandi was strong enough to stand up, and "matte" was called.

Next, Hamada did an ouchi-gari attack that very nearly scored. It allowed her to transition into a hold-down and for a few seconds, Bellandi was trapped but she managed to squirm out of that situation.

Hamada then attempted to turn her over from turtle position. It's very rare that Hamada doesn't get her way when she is attacking uke in such a position but Bellandi survived the attack.

When the referee called "matte" there was only 17 seconds left with not a single shido on the board. There was little Hamada could do.