On the last day of judo competitions, Brazil won another medal, the fourth in the sport at the Paris Olympics. The bronze came in the team competition, with an exciting 4-3 victory over the Italian team.
The Brazilian team had seven judokas registered: Larissa Pimenta, Rafaela Silva, Ketleyn Quadros, Beatriz Souza, Daniel Cargnin, Willian Lima, Rafael Macedo, Guilherme Schmidt, Leonardo Gonçalves and Rafael Silva. In each stage of the competition, six judokas – three men and three women – would be chosen to fight. The team competition consists of six fights, with the possibility of a tiebreaker. The winner is the one who wins four fights.
In the round of 16, the Brazilian judokas faced Kazakhstan. With victories by Rafa Silva, Ketleyn Quadros, Beatriz Souza and Leonardo Gonçalves, Brazil won 4-2 and entered the fight for the medals. The opponent in the quarterfinals was Germany. And in very close matches, the national team was defeated 4-3 in the extra match. To reach the podium, Brazil would have to overcome the Serbian team. And that’s what happened: 4-1 for Brazil, with victories by Ketleyn Quadros, Rafael Macedo, Rafael Silva and Rafaela Silva.
Larissa. Rafaela. Ketleyn. Beatriz. Willian. Daniel. Guilherme. Rafael. Leonardo. Rafael.
YOU ARE OLYMPIC MEDALISTS! 🥉
And the #Judo Brazilian ruling a lot in #Paris2024! We made history! pic.twitter.com/EROz1XJ5cE
— CBJ (@JudoCBJ) August 3, 2024
The direct fight for the bronze medal was against the Italian team. Rafael Macedo scored for Brazil after defeating Christian Parlati. In the next fight, Beatriz Souza defeated Asya Tavano and the team went up two to zero. After a long duel against Gennaro Pirelli, Leonardo Gonçalves was defeated by a waza-ari at the golden score and Italy scored. Rafaela Silva was opposed by Veronica Toniolo and won by ippon with an armbar. Brazil opened again at 3-1 and only needed one more victory. The next to fight was silver medalist Willian Lima. In an intense fight, Italian Manuel Lombardo defeated the Brazilian by ippon at the golden score.
Next came Ketleyn Quadros, who managed to open up an advantage of waza-ari about Savita Russo, but suffered a ippon with less than 30 seconds to go. It was an Italian draw.
Tiebreaker
With the score at 3-3, the bronze medal had to be decided in the extra fight with golden scorefor a category defined by draw. And it was up to Rafaela Silva to face Veronica Toniolo once again. Whoever scored first would win. In the opening seconds, Rafaela applied a waza-ari on the opponent. The move was reviewed and confirmed by the referee, guaranteeing the Brazilian’s victory. Thus, in an exciting way, Brazil closed the dispute 4 to 3. The judoka, Olympic champion in Rio (2016), won all the fights in which she participated this Saturday. All Brazilians registered in the competition will go up to the podium.
The bronze medal crowned the best campaign of Brazilian judo in the Olympic Games. There were four podiums: in addition to the team medal, gold for Beatriz Silva (over 78 kg category), silver for Willian Lima (up to 66 kg category) and bronze for Larissa Pimenta (up to 52 kg category). The sport continues to be Brazil’s flagship in Olympic editions: there are 28 medals in total.
