The first judo medals of the 2016 Olympics were handed out on Saturday, and Paula Pareto made history by becoming the first Argentine – male or female – to win Olympic gold in judo. The 30-year-old won gold in the women’s 48 kg judo category, bettering her performance in 2008 Beijing when she won the bronze, reports Xinhua.
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Judoka Jeong Bo-kyeong won silver for South Korea’s first medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics on Saturday.
After hugging one particularly patriotic fan whose face was painted in blue and white, Pareto was left with faint traces of blue paint on the right side of her face.
It was a day of surprises on the first day of the judo competition at the Rio Games. “I am very happy”, she told the Argentine press on Saturday after winning. “I was feeling much better in the final than I did earlier in the day, and so I expected myself to win gold”.
Having split her recent fights with Jeong, Martinel said their strategy was for Pareto to go on the offensive. She lost on a single penalty in an otherwise scoreless match.
Pareto, 30, won the judo world championship in Kazakhstan past year.
However, she suffered a shock defeat in the quarterfinals. The other bronze medal was won by Otgontsetseg Galbadrakh of Kazakhstan.
London 2012 Olympic champion Menezes came into the Games as a huge medal hope for Brazil but lost in the quarter-final against Cuba’s Dayaris Mestre Alvarez and then in the repechage to Mongolia’s Urantsetseg Munkhbat, suffering a dislocated ellbow in the bout.
Mudranov defeated Kazakhstan’s 2015 world champion Yeldos Smetow by golden score in the extra time in the men’s -60kg final. In the final round, she defeated South Korea’s Bokyeong Jeong to claim her spot on the podium. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the honourary president of the International Judo Federation, the sport’s governing body; Putin holds a black belt in the Japanese martial art.
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The bronze medal was also shared, with Naohisa Takato of Japan finishing third alongside Uzbekistan’s Diyorbek Urozbeov.
