Rising star Ozlem Yildiz claims third Junior world title for Turkey ever

At day two of the Junior World Championships in Guayaquil three countries won the title. In U57kg for women, number one seed, Ozlem Yildiz of Turkey had a lot of pressure on her shoulders, especially since after the first two rounds, she was opposed to the Japanese, Rin Eguchi. Standing strong in her experience among the juniors, Yildiz got rid of the Japanese trap, to face another athlete from the land of the rising sun, Akari Omori, in the final.

The final started with obvious intentions from Omori to control the right arm of Yildiz, but the Japanese judoka was penalised quickly for blocking the grip and a moment later she picked up a second penalty for passivity, putting her in a difficult position, that actually didn't seem to bother her too much. She just had to be careful not to get the third shido. After four minutes of intense gripping it was time for golden score. With a powerful change of direction and an acrobatic sumi-gaeshi, without even having the leg engaged, Yildiz scored a waza-ari which offered her the gold medal, the first one of this championships won by the top seeded athlete of a group. Yildiz takes the third ever gold medal for her country. In 1994 Ilknur Kobas won the world title for the first time for Turkey. In 2018 Bilal Ciloglu was the first man to win the title.

There is no longer any need to introduce Brazil, with its countless world and Olympic champions and medallists. It's no secret that the recurring quality of Brazilian judo begins with the youngest ones. Bianca Reis (BRA) is a good example of this, having qualified for the bronze medal contest, against the Italian Veronica Toniolo (ITA), who was keen to imitate her compatriots who won medals the day before.

With a shido apiece, Toniolo and Reis reached golden score, where after six minutes they were still to decide who would win. Then with two shido on each side, the tension raised a notch and we had to wait six and a half minutes into golden score to see Toniolo score to win the bronze medal.

Marta Garcia Martin (ESP) did not have an easy match trying to get on the podium as she faced Rin Egichi (JPN). The contest started with a faster rhythm than the first bronze medal match, as Eguchi quickly scored a first waza-ari to take the lead. It then felt clear that Garcia Martin did not have the tools to score against the strong Japanese competitor. It is not that Garcia Martin did not try, but she was dominated by Eguchi's left hand, who easily controlled the rest of the contest to win the bronze medal.