Havana, Apr 16 (ACN) With gold medals for Iván Silva in the 90 kilograms (kg) and Andy Granda (+100 kg), Cuba today closed the last day of the individual tournament of the I Pan American and Oceania Senior Judo Championshipin Lima, Peru, a performance that guaranteed him second place by country.
The largest of the Antilles also achieved three fifth places this Saturday, with Marlenis Gorguet (78 kg), Thalia Narino (+78) and Liester Cardona (100 kg), and a seventh, with Naomis Elizarde (+78 kg).
Silva debuted with victory against New Zealander Noah Walliss, and then defeated Canadian Keagan Young, American Harrison Cassar, in the semifinals, and Brazilian Marcelo Gomes, in the discussion of the 90 kg title.
Granda was bye in the first round of preliminaries, and in the successive ones he had the New Zealander Kody Andrews, the Canadian Marc Deschenes, in the semis, and the Brazilian Rafael Silva, in the final.
In total, the Cuban men’s and women’s teams accumulated two gold, two silver and two bronze medals, behind favorite Brazil (7-5-3), and ahead of the United States (1-1-6), Canada (1-1-4), Venezuela (1-1-0), Australia (1-0-4) and Costa Rica (1-0-0), the seven nations that won at least one of the 14 titles in dispute .
On the first competitive day, Cuba won two silver medals, with Danny Porte (60 kg) and Arnaes Odelín (57 kg), and two bronze medals, with Magdiel Estrada (73 kg) and Yusmari Reyes (63 kg), as well as a seventh step, with Melissa Hurtado (52 kg).
Tomorrow, Sunday, will be the mixed team tournament, with the divisions of 57, 70, +70 (f), 73, 90 and +90 kg (m), in which Brazil is once again the favorite.
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The Lima event is the first of four that distribute points for the qualification for the Pan American Games in Santiago de Chile 2023.
According to the website www.ijf.org, 217 judokas -121 men and 96 women- from 24 countries were registered in Lima, under strict compliance with sanitary measures by COVID-19.
