by Luca Bertelli
The Brescian faints after the ippon suffered in the final lost on the golden score
On the podium in Abu Dhabi, they are all smiling. She except Alice Bellandi, despite a world silver medal in the -78 kg category, which should almost certainly allow her to show up at the Paris Olympics in two months as number one in the rankings. The German Anna-Maria Wagner, gold medalist, cries and then laughs: she has just defeated the 25-year-old from Brescia from Roncadelle for the fifth time in six matches. The British Emma Reid and the French Madeleine Malonga, whom Alice had destroyed in the semi-final, are also smiling: they are both fresh from victories in the two finals (judo awards two third places, via the repechage lane) for the bronze.
Alice is furious, angry: she is not someone who competes to settle for second place, she knows she is the strongest, these World Championships were a step towards the Games but she had prepared them carefully, giving up the European Championships and several stages of the Slams. And the defeat, against an uncomfortable rival that it only managed to beat at the 2023 European Championships when it then lost in the final to the other German Alina Boehm, this time came only at the golden score (overtime), when an ippon from Wagner knocked her out, causing her to faint quickly, which had also worried her family and her fans in front of the TV. Her presence on the podium, where she sportingly embraced her rivals without hiding her disappointment for second place, reassured everyone. Her declarations, at the end of the day, relaunched the challenge with her sights set on the Olympics: «I’m like someone who gets to the top and falls at the best moment – said Alice – I’m not being presumptuous if I say that I come to these events to win, I wasn’t here for this finale but I have to honor this medal and improve myself to take what I left here today. Two months of work await me to return to the tatami in Paris and bring home what I want to achieve.”
The path to the final for Bellandi, who still lacks a senior gold in international events (he now has a silver and a bronze at both the World Championships and the European Championships), was peremptory. Alice overwhelmed her opponents, as she always does when she is well: starting with ippon and soto gari to the Ecuadorian Vanessa Chala, then a wazari to the dangerous Portuguese Patricia Sampaio (Por), then wazari and shido 3 with Audrey Tcheumeo (France) and a super ippon on the other transalpine Madeleine Malonga. The final was an uphill battle, with German Wagner very sure of herself and her position. Bellandi, who has no rivals in terms of individual talent, tried to intoxicate her with quick and explosive movements. She partially succeeded, given that regulation time ended with two shido each. Then, in the golden score the German squeezed the Brescian’s neck in a ground action: it was the decisive ippon. In judo the match up is very important, there are some opponents who match better or worse depending on their physical characteristics. Alice suffers Wagner, who in turn suffers other rivals. The five-ring revenge is not at all a given. She will serve a day like champions, Thursday 1 August. Not a random date, but the one in which Marcell Jacobs won gold in Tokyo and dedicated himself to the world. This time it could happen to one of her compatriots.
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22 maggio 2024
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2024-05-22 18:37:35
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