Daria Bilodid cancels Judo Masters in Guangzhou

The Masters in Guangzhou are approaching, the last top tournament of the year 2018. The icing on the cake of an excellent judo year where many judo stars showed their real capacities. New stars were born, but at the Masters most top athlete will showcase their best judo, but without Daria Bilodid who planned to go to China but had to cancel her participation due to illness that caught her since Monday.

The category U48kg was upset by youngster Daria Bilodid who became the youngest World Champion ever in our judo history. However Bilodid will not be present in China for the last tournament of the year. Since her Junior World title in October she took rest and made time for her business side and trained in Japan. The number one seed in Guangzhou will be Urantsetseg Munkhbat (MGL). Paula Pareto (ARG) is ranked number two and Russian Irina Dolgova is third. We expect strong Japanese opposition from Ami Kondo. Milica Nikolic (SRB) is always in for a medal at top events, but not gold. Beside Bilodid, no one really dominated this category. Hiromi Endo was the only one who captured two gold medals in the IJF World Tour and she doesn’t even compete as well. Seeing can guarantee an easier ride to the next rounds, but at the Masters seeding is not the most relevant as outside the top 8 other major candidates will appear to give glance to their year.

We expect Distria Krasniqi (KOS) to give opposition to the seeded players. Also Catarina Costa is well in shape but if she can really reach a semi final is doubtful, but she had a great year so far and is knocking at the door to progress in 2019.

Who will take the valuable points and perhaps the 50,000 dollar IJF bonus at the end of the year being world number one. It won’t be Bilodid, Funa Tonaki is still number one but won’t compete and there’s a huge gap between Munkhbat and the rest of the field. We think Munkhbat will take it, but the gold…. Let us know in JudoInside's Instagram account.