Dream start to 2019 for rising Maria Centracchio

Italian Maria Centracchio won her first IJF World Judo Tour gold medal at the expense of Inbal Shemesh of Israel in the first final of the Grand Prix in Tel Aviv U63kg. World number 59 Centracchio opened her IJF World Judo Tour medal account (silver) in Uzbekistan in November and imposed herself in Tel Aviv for another first in her career which looks set to take off in 2019.

Only a shido against Agadir Grand Prix bronze medallist Shemesh for passivity was handed out in regulation time as golden score was required to produce a winner and the home judoka was caught with a neat sumi-gaeshi for a match-winning waza-ari score.

In the first semi-final Shemesh defeated Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Ketleyn Quadros (BRA) by a single waza-ari which was the only score of their contest as Israel guaranteed one more medal on day two. In the second semi-final Antalya Grand Prix silver medallist Valentina Kostenko

The first bronze medal contest was won by Kostenko who submitted world number 70 Geke Van Den Berg (NED) with shime-waza at the halfway point of the contest. Russia’s world number 35 Kostenko won the opening medal contest in the final block to earn her second IJF medal as surprise package Van Den Berg finished a respectable fifth.

The second bronze medal was won by Junior World Championships winner Sanne Vermeer (NED) who forced world number 25 Quadros to tap out. Vermeer secured her first IJF World Judo Tour medal outside of her homeland after fighting back from the deficit of a waza-ari score – a left-sided ippon seoi-nage from Quadros – to quickly apply the shime-waza and to start the new season with a new honour in her young career.