As if it were a complete count of balls and strikes in baseball, this is how the Cuban judokas are going in search of tickets for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: three classified and two forced to win in their next fights to ensure classification for the event under the five rings.
The guaranteed shortlist is made up of the multi-Olympic and world medalist Idalys Ortiz (+78 kg), and the also winners in world tournaments Andy Granda (+100 kg) and Iván Silva (90 kg), who have the challenge of moving up or ratify their current positions in the world ranking (RM) of the International Judo Federation (IJF) to avoid the highest rivals in the competition pairing in the French capital.
Ortiz, included on the summer podium four times – bronze in Beijing 2008, gold in London 2012 and silver in both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 – is ranked 22nd on the provisional Olympic list (LO-2 263 points), and with A great performance at the next Pan American and Oceania Championships in Rio de Janeiro (April 26-27) would ensure his trip to the City of Light, and would also help him improve his position in the RM, as he occupies 23rd place with 2,303 units.
Granda and Silva show a much more comfortable situation. The first is second in the LO (4,394), only surpassed by the Russian Inal Tasoev (5,700), and is fourth in the RM (4,794), behind Tasoev himself (6,200), the Tajik Temur Rakhimov ( 5 825) and French star Teddy
Riner (4,794), without forgetting the Czech Lukas Krpalek, double Olympic and world champion at 100 kg and apparently permanently installed in the super heavyweights.
Silva is also well positioned, as he is sixth in the LO (3,838) and is fifth in the RM (4,568), which is why he needs to ratify these positions, which he must achieve by getting on the podium in the city of Rio, where they will have as main adversaries to the hosts Beatriz Souza, Rafael Silva and Rafael Macedo, respectively.
Forced to win as many points as possible are Maylín del Toro (63 kg) and Magdiel Estrada (71 kg), while the rest practically have no options to go to Paris 2024, unless the latter mentioned secure a direct ticket and then Orlando Polanco (66 kg) or Jonathan Charón (60 kg) benefit from a continental quota.
Del Toro missed the opportunity to win the recent Pan American Open in Varadero, falling to the Canadian Isabelle Harris (barely placed in 60th place in the LO), and momentarily lost direct qualification and now has the continental quota that prior to the tournament in the Cuban resort it was in the hands of Estrada. The Santiago native is in 22nd place and only 25 points separate her from 21st place, the last place with a place for the Ilê de France, occupied by the Croatian Katarina Kristo (2,511).
Estrada is in 24th place in the LO (2,265), just one place below the last one with a ticket at the moment – the Israeli Tohar Butbul (2,460), but to erase that difference he is practically forced to reach the final of the bicontinental tournament in Brazil.
2024-04-18 02:32:37
#Cuban #judokas #threes #twos #Juventud #Rebelde
