-63 kg: Piovesana Takes Austria's First Gold in Dushanbe

Piovesana made a mistake early on and was countered for a waza-ari, forcing a dramatic change of strategy. Chasing the score is risky and stressful but the plus is that it refines the objective and for Piovesana it brought every rule into clear focus. She did it all right from there and Badurova was penalised 3 times in fairly quick succession, sending Piovesana into the semi-final.

In pool B the top seed was Kristo (CRO) but she didn’t obey the rankings, losing out to young Savita Russo (ITA) who then went on to win the pool, despite an impressive challenge from current African champion Amina Belkadi (ALG).

The Algerian took out Watanabe (JPN) and Schmidt (GER) and looked set to deal with Russo too but she stepped the wrong way, from a 2 shido apiece situation, directly onto a beautiful standing seoi, throwing her into the repechage. Belkadi has never medalled on the World Judo Tour and today could easily have been her golden day. The repechage would be her next test.

Pool C was registered in advance to Prisca Awiti-Alcaraz (MEX), top of the quarter and threatening to tip everyone over with her tomoe-nage, but after a no-nonsense win against Billiet (CIV) in round one, she faced Barrios (VEN) who she has lost to 4 times out of their last 5 meetings. She made light work of it though, fully in control throughout for a win on penalties. In the quarter-final she dominated the opening exchanges but then took an injury and chose to withdraw, leaving her in 7th place, gaining valuable points but not as many as she planned for.

The final pool of the category was topped by Timo (POR) but she left early, thrown with a low tai-otoshi by Liluashvili in fight 1. The Independent Neutral Athlete continued that way all the way to the final.

In the first semi-final Poivesana threw Russo for ippon with a perfectly placed seoi-otoshi to jump into the final with Liluashvili who won her semi-final by waza-ari against Cabana Perez.

The first bronze medal contest was fought by Belkadi (ALG) and Cabana Perez (ESP) after the Algerian dispatched Badurova in the repechage.

For the gold medallist at last month’s African Championships, a medal here would be the first for her at grand slam level At 31 years old, this is likely to be her last Olympic cycle and so she has been coming into form at just the right moment. With still more than a minute on the clock she countered the Spanish judoka with a tani-otoshi and scored waza-ari, managing the rest of the contest intelligently, not losing her head under the pressure of the tantalising medal win. It was bronze for Belkadi, at last, and a respectable 5th place finish, also coming with valuable points, for Cabana Perez.

The second bronze medal was headed to either Croatia or Italy with Oberan or Russo. The Croatian put a lot of pressure on her opponent offering Russo two penalties early in the contest. With one and a half minutes to go, a swift change of direction unbalanced Russo and she landed towards the back but with both hands down behind her. The waza-ari was scored and immediately followed by Russo’s 3rd shido. Oberan ran off the mat to hug her coach, thrilled with the medal and the overall performance.

In the final, the number one seed never looked to be in danger. A single waza-ari from a well timed left-sided seoi-otoshi was enough to seal the victory and a gold medal worth 1000 points in the penultimate Gand slam of this Olympic cycle for the Austrian. Gold goes to Piovesana and silver to Liluashvili.