Brazilians Rafaela Silva, in the up to 63 kilos category, and Daniel Cargnin, in the up to 73 kilos category, won this Saturday (29) two bronze medals at the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) in judo.
The first person to stand on the podium for Brazil in Abu Dhabi this Saturday was the world and Olympic gold medalist. On her debut, Rafaela passed the Israeli Kerem Primo. Then the Rio native beat Canadian Jessica Klimkait. However, in the semifinals, the Brazilian lost to the Japanese Megu Danno and went on to compete for bronze, in which she defeated the Kosovar Laura Fazliu thanks to a yuko.
“I’m very happy with my performance. It wasn’t the gold medal, but I had a good competition. I managed to beat Olympic medalists, world medalists and athletes that I lost during the year. It was a year of a lot of learning. This was my last competition and I’m very happy with my performance. I’ve been growing a lot. I started the year and didn’t even have a ranking, and today I arrived at the competition as seed, 15th place in the world ranking. So, I’m very happy with my process, trusting, believing and enjoying the process”, declared Rafaela.
PODIUM SATURDAY FOR BRAZILIAN JUDO! 🇧🇷🥉
Rafaela Silva (-63kg) and Daniel Cargnin (-73kg) won the first medals of the #TimeBrasil at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam!
📺 This Sunday (30), from 9:40 am, there are more LIVE finals in https://t.co/b3cm40HRRs!#Judo… pic.twitter.com/4dORXIrom7
— Team Brasil (@timebrasil) November 29, 2025
Then it was Daniel Cargnin’s turn to shine. The judoka from Rio Grande do Sul began his career in the competition with a victory over German Alexander Bernd Gabler, in a contest in which he scored four yukos and one ippon. Then, in the round of 16, he beat Kazakh Yesset Kuanov. In the quarterfinals, Cargnin had a yuko golden score to overcome Makhmadbek Makhmadbekov, from the United Arab Emirates.
However, in the semi-finals the Brazilian had an advantage against the Tajik Muhiddin Asadulloev, due to a yuko, but he took the turn with a waza-ari and was unable to reverse the score. In this way, the gaucho continued to compete for bronze, in which he did not give Frenchman Joan-Benjamin Gaba any opportunities.
“I’m very happy. I had tough fights here and I believe that all international level competitions have difficult fights, but it was very good, because I remade the World Cup final against Gaba, from France. I believe that all competitions are different stories. I entered the competition very confident and lately I’ve been trying not to measure my parameters just by victory or defeat in order to be confident. I have to trust in myself and I will trust in all the competitions I enter. I will leave with my head held high, regardless of winning or losing”, said Daniel Cargnin.
