If you have seen the film The Anonymous Avenger, by Charles Bronson, you could adjust that climate of justice at all costs, taken by your own hands, kumis in this case, to the Cuban judoka Iván Silva, who in his second competition of the year fulfilled its premise to improve a lot compared to the previous one and the bronze medal was hung, with vendetta included.
We are talking about the Grand Slam of Tel Aviv, where the idol of Columbus in Matanzas among 25 judokas advanced successfully in three presentations, including the rematch against the rocky Turkish Mihael Zgank, his victimizer a week ago in Paris, and whom he made kneel by ippon on this occasion, in addition to the fact that it still exhibits a negative historical balance of 2-3 against the Ottoman.
Silva only succumbed in the semifinals against the Serbian and ultimately silver medalist, Nemanja Majdov; in a fight extended until 6:02 minutes of the Golden Rule, against a judoka who, in addition to being king of the world in Budapest 2017, currently exhibits 27 in the world ranking (1,230 pts), a position that will surely improve in the update of the next Thursday, in which Silva (22-1,560) must also be promoted.
After the slip against Majdov, Silva gave wazari to the Bajkos representative, Jasper Smink, to win one of the bronzes, while Zgansk himself won the other bronze metal.
Regarding Silva, in the previous conversation held via email, he told me that as he saw the elite opponents, he would acquire a better sporting form. And his performance on Israeli tatamis proved it. Surely he had a lot to do with the benefit of the training camp developed as part of the Parisian competition.
Thalía Nariño (+78 kg) also competed for Cuba this Sunday and was eliminated by ippon in her first fight at the hands of the Kazakh Kamila Berlikash; and the also super complete Andy Granda (+100), who flirted with the awards podium, but ultimately anchored fifth.
Granda began his organization chart with a smile by ippon at the expense of Adil Orazbayev, also a Kazakh, but in his next challenge he failed against the extremely tanned Brazilian Rafael Silva, a man with whom he had an identical 3-3 record before Sunday’s fight. This victory for Silva meant the third in line against our exponent in the seven duels held.
In the uncomfortable playoff Granda opened on the victorious path by defeating the Ukrainian Yakiv Kahmo by disqualification (three penalties) in the golden rule; but then he ran the same fate disputing bronze against the representative of Tajikistan, Temur Rakhimov, a fight in which both had a couple of penalties at the time of the definition.
Granda (1,410 units) and who accumulates a record of 2-3 so far on tour, is ranked 24th in the incipient ranking of the world, in which Rafael Silva is second (4,032), and the Georgian and deserving of the scepter Guram Tushishvili (3,034) is seventh. All three must increase their current scores next week and in the case of Tushishvili and Granda even climb the rungs.
The Grand Slam in Israeli lands saw France (4-0-4) emerge as queen of the match, as happened in Paris; escorted on this occasion by Azerbaijan (2-1-1); Georgia and Japan (2-1-0); Israel (1-0-4); Ukraine and Belgium (1-0-1); and Poland (1-0-0). Meanwhile, Cuba, with a legion of 12 judokas, ranked 21st, thanks to the respective performances of Silva and Granda, since the remaining ten competitors were eliminated in their first or second presentations, within a fair that brought together to 298 athletes representing 34 nations.
It remains for the exponents of the Greater Antilles, as part of their traditional winter tour, to venture into the Grand Slam of Tbilisi, Georgia (March 25-27); and Antalya, Turkey (April 1-3).
