-52kg: Mascha Ballhaus Builds her Victory

Far from being a big favourite of the tournament, Mascha Ballhaus (GER) went through the preliminary rounds, to join the Japanese champion in the final, while the two favourites Diyora Keldiyorova (UZB) and Fabienne Kocher could not get out of the trap of the first contests.

In the final, Ballhaus was penalised with a first shido for stepping out of the competition area but against the odds, against her famous opponent, Ballhaus took her chance and after starting with an uchi-mata, she totally changed direction with an o-uchi-gari to score a beautiful waza-ari. There were still more than two minutes to go and Mascha Ballhaus perfectly controlled Shishime to build a first victory in a grand slam.

Ana Perez Box (ESP) and Yingwei Liu (CHN) qualified for the first match for a bronze medal. Perez Box scored a first waza-ari with a clever combination of o-soto and ko-soto gari and then had to deal with the pressure put on her by Liu, who attacked non-stop. With a handful of seconds left, Liu launched a last desperate attack that was far off the score. When the final gong resonated it took a few more seconds for Perez Box to realise that she had won the bronze medal.

Maria Sidero (POR) could add a second medal for the Portuguese delegation after Costa's silver medal in the lower category but first she had to face Reka Pupp (HUN), who is one of the most consistent athletes on the circuit. After only 25 seconds, Sidero launched a first soto-makikomi and her head touched the tatami before any other body part, which led to her to being penalised with a hansoku-make.

Once again this is one of the points that was discussed during the referee seminar. If this special attack might not have looked dangerous, it was still a head dive and a first contact with the head, which can be dangerous, especially if young judoka want to do the same.