“It is the fourth consecutive gold in the world circuit and with this Alice rises to first place in the world ranking list”. He is rightly satisfied with the gold medal in the 78 kg conquered by Alice Bellandi on the third and final day of the Grand Slam a Tel Aviv the head coach of the women’s blue team Francesco Bruyerewho added “This string of positive results has made it
Alice so sure of her enormous potential that, lucid and calm, she is now able to express herself in all her beauty. Today she was impressive to the point of making it even seem easy, focused and effective. She did nothing wrong by giving a show to all those who follow our sport. Expressing oneself in this way at this level is something for a few, Alice arrived there with a long journey made of commitment and sacrifice and she must be an example for everyone, I would say she has spread her wings and now they will be serious problems for all her opponents . Many congratulations to her and to the Fiamme Gialle Sports Group”.
A real triumph for Alice Bellandi, who put the Mongolian Khuslen Otgonbayar in line, then the French Fanny Estelle Posvite and the Israeli Inbar Lanir in the semifinal, all by ippon. In the final, Alice defeated Madeleine Malonga from France, Olympic silver medalist in Tokyo, for the fourth time in ten months.
A great performance was also that of Gennaro Pirelli, who obtained a fifth place in the 100 kg with victories over the Turkmen Majanov and the Canadians Elnahas and Reyes, fourth and seventh respectively in the world rankings, then stopping in the semifinals in front of the Azeri Kotsoiev and, in the final for the bronze, with the Brazilian Goncalves.
Seventh place for the always brilliant Christian Parlati who, in the 90 kg, struck down the French Tassier with a lightning victory (12 seconds) before the formidable Belgian Sami Chouchi, but was then stopped by the Azeri Mehdiyev and in the recoveries by the Mongolian Gantulga.
Nicholas Mungai, still in the 90 kg, after overtaking the Montenegrin Mrvaljevic was stopped by the Serbian Majdov, while Asya Tavano in the +78 kg found her way blocked by the Bosnian expert Larisa Ceric.
Italy therefore closes this Grand Slam with two medals, the gold of Bellandi and the bronze of Giuffrida, as well as three fifths (Antonio and Martina Esposito, Gennaro Pirelli) and three seventh places (Simone Aversa, Giovanni Esposito, Christian Parlati ) for a sixth place in the medal table for nations which can quite well express the value of even the Azzurri who did not finish.
“This Grand Slam in Tel Aviv ends for the men’s team with the fifth places of Antonio Esposito and Gennaro Pirelli and the seventh places of Giovanni Esposito and Christian Parlati. -commented Raffaele Parlati, head coach of the men’s team- Despite not having brought home any medals, the boys played a good match considering that they still came from the heavy workload done in Japan. By avoiding a few small mistakes, important medals could still have arrived”.
