The veteran world and Olympic multi-medallist Silva fell in the super heavyweight final against the Georgian Guran Tushishvili, for three reprimands (shido) in a defined fight on the golden point, while his compatriot Souza could not beat the French favorite Romane Dicko, double Olympic medalist in Tokyo-2020, after being crowned by mixed teams and finishing third in the division.
For his part, the Cuban Silva, world silver in Baku-2018, defeated the Dutch Jesper Smink by waza-ari in one of the fights for the bronze medal in the 90 kilograms, category in which the Azeri Mammadali Mehdiyev won by ippon in the duel for the title against Serbian Nemanja Majdov, world monarch of Budapest-2017. The other Latin American judoka who went up to the tatami for a medal on the last day of the Tel Aviv Grand Slam was the Cuban of more than 100 kilograms Andy Granda, surpassed in the discussion of the bronze by the Tajik Temur Rakhimov, also by three penalties.
The region had not achieved podiums in the two previous dates of the contest, in which athletes from Brazil (17), Cuba (12), Venezuela (five), the Dominican Republic (two) and Chile and Colombia competed with one.
In the women’s 78, the Polish Beata Pacut, European champion last year, won the title by accumulating shidos from the German Alina Boehm, and the 20-year-old Georgian Ilia Sulamanidze, third in the 2021 world championship, was crowned in 100 of the men, leaving the Dutchman Michael Korrel in silver.
The tournament based at the Drive in Arena in the Israeli capital was dominated by France with four golds, followed by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Japan with two.
The next stop on the world circuit of the International Judo Federation will be the Grand Slam in Tbilisi, Georgia, from March 25 to 27.
wmr
