Andy Granda (+100 kg). External source
Ankara, March 28 (Prensa Latina) The Cuban judokas are ready today to participate tomorrow in the Grand Slam in Antalya, a city about 480 kilometers south of this capital.
The team is headed by Andy Granda (+100 kg), Iván Silva (90 kg) and the Olympic and world multi-medallist Idalys Ortiz (+78 kg), who, like Maylín del Toro (63 kg), have practically secured their tickets for the appointment under the five rings of Paris 2024.
Granda is the best placed in the world ranking (RM-third) and on the Olympic list (LO-fifth), in addition to his titles at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games and the America-Oceania Championship, held in Calgary, Canada, in last September.
The Antillean super heavyweight also added silver and bronze medals at the Upper Austria Grand Prix and the Tbilisi Grand Slam, respectively; and in Antalya he will once again be among the first eight seeds along with the Finnish Martti Puumalainen (sixth in the RM), the Japanese Tatsuro Saito (10th place) and the multiple world champion, the Frenchman Teddy Riner (eighth).
The list of favorites is completed by the Dutchman Jelle Snippe (12), the well-known Brazilian Rafael Silva (13), the Azerbaijani Ushangi Kokauri (14) – silver in Tbilisi and winner in the Granda semi-finals – and the Slovakian Marius Fizel (20 ), defeated by the Cuban in the bronze medal discussion in said Grand Slam.
For his part, Iván Silva (90 kg) will be the first seed, being the best ranked among the participants (RM-4 and LO-14), and his main opponents will be the Hungarian Krisztian Toth, the Japanese Sanshiro Murao, the Uzbek Davlat Babonov and the Azerbaijani Eljan Hajiyev, who won silver in the Georgian capital and beat de Silva in the quarterfinals.
The native of the western Cuban province of Matanzas has won continental gold in recent months in Santiago 2023 and in Upper Austria, as well as fifth places in the Grand Slams of Baku and Tashkent.
The veteran Ortiz (+78 kg) continues to rise in the world ranking (23rd place) and is in Olympic qualification positions after winning bronze in the Austrian competition and finishing fifth in Tbilisi.
Of the rest of the members of the Cuban roster, Maylin del Toro (63 kg) stands out, who is also in Olympic qualification positions, but has not managed to go beyond three seventh places in the Grand Slams of Paris, Baku and Tbilisi.
Magdiel Estrada (73 kg) has not even reached the best eight in any of the last tournaments, but has the option to attend Paris 2024 thanks to the continental quota.
Far from the Olympic qualification positions are the promising Jonathan Charón (60 kg), Orlando Polanco (66 kg), Aleanny Carvajal (52 kg) and Lianet Cardona (78 kg), while Idelannis Gómez (70 kg) recovers from a injury.
mem/jcm
2024-03-28 11:29:22
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