Gaia Massimetti successor of Toniolo with cadet world title

Italy’s Gaia Massimetti was the absolute surprise in the girls U52kg category for cadets at the World Championships in Sarajevo. Massimetti is the teammate of the number one seed Michele Terranova (ITA). Massimetti’s final was against a whole other athlete, from Uzbekistan that becomes stronger and stronger and in all age divisions.

There is no longer any doubt that Uzbekistan has implemented a development policy for women's judo and it is working, as Sugdiyona Rafkatova (UZB) qualified for the second women's final of the day brilliantly. It must be recognised that Rafkatova was number two in the competition seedings and that in the final she found the unexpected opponent in Massimetti. The final match promised to be well disputed.

It was in fact not as fraught as expected because Massimetti, with nice ashi-waza, drove her opponent down to the tatami for ippon to win the first gold medal of the Italian delegation. Massimetti is successor of Veronica Toniolo who won the same title U52kg in 2019.

Italy had a second medal chance thanks to Michele Terranova (ITA), top of the world rankings, qualifying for the bronze medal match against Anna Tieliegina (UKR). Due to the first golden score of today's final block, we had to wait a bit to see the first strong attack and it did not come from the one we expected. Michele Terranova was actually leading the match physically, but she had not scored, although her opponent was penalised twice.

It was the latter, though, who scored first with a well executed seoi-nage. In judo everything is always possible and there is one rule to follow: believe in yourself. Anna Tieliegina believed in herself and it offered her a beautiful and well deserved bronze medal.

Karolina Sienicka (POL) and Yi-Hsi Shen (TPE) delivered a strong effort to qualify for the second bronze medal contest. With a beautiful driving ko-uchi-gari combined with perfect control of the upper body, Yi-Hsi Shen scored a first waza-ari to take the lead. With a few seconds remaining, Karolina Sienicka (POL) applied a well timed technique, for which she was rewarded with a waza-ari too, putting her back on track for a medal but the video refereeing was clear and with no possible discussion. It was a bear hug with no gripping before the attack was applied and this is not allowed. Her waza-ari was cancelled, shido given and a bronze medal listed for Yi-Hsi Shen.