Judoka’s Joana Diogo and Maria Siderot were knocked out this Monday in the first fights at the World Cup in Doha, both in the -52 kg category, leaving the Portuguese team without athletes on the second day of competition.
In the championships, which started on Sunday, the selection has already seen five of the 11 Portuguese judokas go to work, and with the exception of Raquel Brito (-48 kg), with three fights performed, the rest immediately left the scene the debut fight.
After the eliminations of Rodrigo Lopes and Catarina Costa, it was Joana Diogo and Maria Siderot today, although the former reached the ‘golden score’ after the first four minutes of extra time.
Joana Diogo (26th in the ranking), of the Coimbra Judo Club, took on the Moroccan Soumiya Iraoui (23rd), in a balanced fight until extra time, a phase in which the Portuguese woman was close to scoring, but the was Iraoui who scored with waza-ari, at 06:45.
The judoka immediately entered the first round, while Maria Siderot (32nd) was exempt and only later entered the ABHA Arena against the Belgian Amber Ryheul (22nd), who had triumphed in her debut match.
Despite Amber Ryheul taking two penalties close to three minutes into the fight, it was the Belgian who got the advantage close to the last minute, first with waza-ari and then with ippon, five seconds from the end.
Maria Siderot never succeeded in imposing her judo, having great difficulty making the holds given her opponent’s arm width, almost always keeping the Portuguese woman at a safe ‘distance’.
In the World Cup, with five judokas eliminated between Sunday and today, Portugal will still have Telma Monteiro (-57 kg), four times world runner-up, in competition on Tuesday, followed by the rest until Friday.
Bárbara Timo (-63 kg), Anri Egutidze and João Fernando (-81 kg) compete on Wednesday, Joana Crisóstomo (-70 kg) on Thursday and Patrícia Sampaio (-78 kg) close the Portuguese participation in Doha on Friday – fair.
Source: DN
