Argentine Paula Pareto World Champion U48kg

Paula Pareto has become World Champion for women U48kg. After a silver medal in 2014 the World #2 on the IJF Rankinglist took revenge on Japan. Ami Kondo blocker her in 2014 to the world title, this time Haruna Asami couldn’t stand the pressure of the small Argentine judoka who steps into the footlight of Daniela Krukower who won the first world title for her country in 2003.

The final was tight with Haruna Asami who led after a first shido for Pareto. But The Argentine came back and Asami was awarded a penalty as well, and due to the pressure of Pareto as second one.

Pareto who’s back in shape after her great bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics and her fifth place in London 2012. The older the better and Pareto who debuted at the World Championships in 2007 now won two medals in a row at the age of 29 years.

Today in Astana Pareto was in the pool of death and survived a huge pool of top fighters. After beating Van Ngoc Tu (VIE) as warm-up, |Charline van Snick was defeated. The Belgian had beaten Olympic Champion Sarah Menezes who had beaten Pareto this year. Pareto proceeded in the road to gold with a victory over Eva Csernivckzy of Hungary. The semi final Jeong Bo-Kyeong of Korea was beaten and she Pareto repeated last year's performance at least, but chances for more.

This year Pareto won two Pan American Open, warm-up events for her in Pan America. But in March she showed to be able to win at World Level again and won the Grand Prix in Samsun. But silver medals came up at Pan American Championships and Panam Games this year where Sarah Menezes (BRA) and Dayaris Mestre Alvarez (CUB) snatched away gold. In May she had won another silver medal at the Rabat IJF Masters.  In June Pareto hit back and took the gold at the Grand Prix in Budapest, where against Funa Tonaki.

Haruna Asami has a good year as well with bronze in the Grand Prix of Düsseldorf and gold at the All Japan Championships and Asian Championships. Despite the pressure of World Champion Ami Kondo, the experienced Haruna Asami could get back in the slipstream and increase the pressure on Kondo. Kondo who finished with bronze today lost against Korean Bo-Kyeong Jeong who won her first bronze at World Championships. Asami could mingle among legendary Japanese names who won the World title three times, but just won her fourth medal, which still gives chances for Kondo to qualify for the Olympic Games.

For the first time since 2005 a non-Asian country won the World Championships. Then it was 18-year old Yanet Bermoy Acosta of Cuba. This year 29-year old Paula PARETO.