Escambray ENGLISH EDITION
The competition, held in the russian city of St. Petersburg, was attended by 214 athletes from 46 countries
Idalis Ortiz (+78 kg) won the silver medal in the IJF St. Petersburg World Judo Masters, in Russia, where the also Cuban Alex Garcia (+100) ranked third.
Ortiz, Olympic champion and runner up in London 2012 and Rio 2016 respectively, lost 3-2 in the final to South Korean Kim Min-jung, bronze medalist in the Budapest 2017 World Senior Championship.
The Caribbean woman had balance of 3 wins and only one loss and her victims were the top ranked Russian Ksenia Chibisova, Dutch Tessie Savelkouls and Brazilian Maria Altheman, in that order.
Garcia, who finished fifth in Rio 2016 Olympics, lost his second bout 2-3 to Georgian Guran Tushishvili, but in the repechage he beat Mongolian Duurenbayar Ulzibayar, and in the bronze medal match, he defeated Polish Maciej Sarnacki, silver medalist in the Abu Dhabi 2017 Grand Slam.
The other three Cubans in competition, Andy Granda (100), Ivan Silva (90) and woman Kaliema Antomarchi (-78), were eliminated in their first bouts.
With only five judokas, Cuba (0-1-1) appeared ninth in the standings, behind Japan (4-2-1), Georgia (3-1-1), Russia (2-2-1), Mongolia (2-0-2), Netherlands (1-1-4), Brazil (1-1-3), South Korea (1-1-2) and France (0-2-3), in that order.
The 2017 St. Petersburg World Judo Masters was attended by 214 athletes from 46 countries and it granted 1,800 points for the world ranking to the winners of each division.
Escambray reserves the right to publish comments.