-48kg: Japan Opens their Scorecard

As we could say a lot about Tara Babulfath before the final, we couldn't say anything about Kano Miyaki, who is a newcomer on the international circuit. With both being discovered as ne-waza specialists, there was a chance that the match would be concluded on the floor and that is what happened. After a long sequence of groundwork, with Miyaki under and Babulfath on top, it seemed that the Swedish champion might take advantage of the situation but never underestimate the capacity of a Japanese competitor to turn a situation upside-down. Eventually, as Babulfath was about to release her leg and pin down her opponent, it was exactly the opposite that happened. An immobilisation for Miyaki and an ippon score and Japan have opened marked their scorecard.

We know Mongolia's appetite for lightweight categories, both for men and women. Nandin-Erdene Myagamarsuren (MGL) could therefore be one of the pillars of the Mongolian team in the coming years. Today she still had to face the Italian Ilaria Finestrone, who was not among the favourites of the competition, to step on the podium and start building a medal record. Myagamarsuren scored the first waza-ari of the contest and was then under the heavy pressure of her Italian opponent, who tried until the last second to come back but could not; a bronze medal for Mongolia and Myagamarsuren.

The second bronze medal contest saw Aydan Valiyeva (AZE) and Luca Veg (HUN) battling it out for the right to step on the podium. What has been very nice to see over the past two days is athletes really looking for a score, without too much in the way of tactics or work on the edge of the tatami. They are just looking for the right attack at the right time. Still perfectible, many movements are not successful but still the aim is to score.

This was definitely the goal of Luca Veg who was looking for the uchi-mata, a technique she had used several times during the morning session quite successfully but this time Valiyeva was ready and aware of Veg's tokui-waza, counterattacking her twice for waza-ari and a bronze medal.