Portuguese judoka Rochele Nunes won the silver medal in the +78 kg category at the Baku Grand Slam, a match in which she recorded two wins and one defeat in the final.
In the toughest women’s category, Rochele Nunes repeated a climb to the podium in Baku, similar to what she did two weeks ago at the Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, but on that occasion taking the bronze medal, finishing third.
Rochele started by beating Venezuelan Amarantha Urdaneta (44th) and in the semi-finals he defeated Turkey’s Hilal Ozturk (26th), before again meeting Serbian Milica Zabic (36th) in the final, with whom he had never lost. in four fights.
This time, the Portuguese judoka ended up surprised in the opening moments, when she was projected onto ippon in the first 52 seconds of the four regular minutes.
With only 13 entered in the competition, the Benfica judoka, 15th in the world, was the first seed in the series to be cleared from the first round and participate directly in the discussion of the quarter-finals.
Rochele Nunes’ silver medal joins Telma Monteiro’s, 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 big disappointment happened with the two-time world champion of -100 kg in 2019 and 2021, Jorge Fonseca (first seed), who lost in the first fight in the Azerbaijani capital, already defeated in the ‘gold score’ by Croatian Zlatko Kumric ( 31st).
It was Jorge Fonseca’s first game after the Tashkent World Cup, in the first weeks of October, where he was unable to reach the ‘tri’ world, in a year that was not easy for the Portuguese, also eliminated from the Europeans in April.
Still, 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, as early as June.
In other categories contested today, Anri Egutidze (-90 kg) lost in the second fight, with Italian Christian Parlati, who went on to win a bronze medal, and Patrícia Sampaio (-78 kg) lost straight away, with British Emma Reid.
Source: DN
