The Portuguese judoka Rochele Nunes won the silver medal in the +78 kg category at the Baku Grand Slam, a competition in which she won two wins and one loss in the final.
In the heaviest women’s category, Rochele Nunes repeated her climb to the podium in Baku, similar to the one she did two weeks ago at the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi, but on that occasion with the bronze medal, as third classified.
Rochele began beating the Venezuelan Amarantha Urdaneta (44th) and in the semifinals she defeated the Turkish Hilal Ozturk (26th), before meeting again in the final the Serbian Milica Zabic (36th), with whom she had never lost in four fights.
This time, the Portuguese judoka ended up being surprised in the first moments, when ippon was projected in the first 52 seconds of the regulation four minutes.
With only 13 registered in the competition, the Benfica judoka, 15th in the world, was the first seed of the series, being exempt from the first round and entering directly into the discussion of the quarterfinals.
Rochele Nunes’ silver medal joins that of Telma Monteiro, who also competed and lost in the -57kg final, but managed to return to the podium in major competitions after recovering from knee surgery.
In Baku, the great disappointment occurred with the two-time -100 kg world champion in 2019 and 2021, Jorge Fonseca (first seed), who lost in the first fight in the Azeri capital, already defeated in the ‘golden score’ by Croatian Zlatko. Kumric (31st).
It was Jorge Fonseca’s first competition after the Tashkent World Cup, in the first weeks of October, where he was unable to reach the ‘tri’ world cup, in a year that has not been easy for the Portuguese, who was also eliminated in the Europeans in April . .
Even so, Jorge Fonseca won gold medals at the Portuguese Grand Prix (January), the Prague Open (March) or the Antalya Grand Slam (April), in addition to the silver medal in Ulan Bator, already in June.
In other categories disputed today, Anri Egutidze (-90 kg) lost in the second fight, with the Italian Christian Parlati, who would win a bronze medal, and Patrícia Sampaio (-78 kg) lost immediately, with the British Emma Reid.
Source: TSF
