Tag Archives: Sarah Menezes

Beatriz Souza Wins Women’s Judo +78kg Event to Give Brazil Its First Gold of 2024 Paris Games

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2024 Paris GamesEverything’s coming up golden for Beatriz Souza.

The 26-year-old Brazilian judoka captured gold in women’s judo +78kg at the 2024 Paris Games by a final score of 1-0, defeating Israel’s Raz Hershko, who took home silver.

Beatriz Souza Souza gave a technical, intelligent, professional performance, one worthy of a position on top of the world.

In the final, Souza was faster to the attack than Hershko and she registered a waza-ari from a well-timed o-soto-gari. Hershko came back with a seoi-otoshi, which was close to scoring but didn’t have enough drive to meet the criteria.

Beatriz Souza Both continued to look for scores but that first o-soto was enough to carry Souza to the Olympic gold.

She was overcome with emotion, as was her coach, an Olympic champion herself, Sarah Menezes.

Souza’s victory secured the first gold medal of the 2024 Summer Olympics for the Brazil delegation.

Prior to the Paris Olympics, Souza won bronze in this weight class at the 2023 World Championships and the 2023 Pan American Games.

Silva Earns a Bronze in Men’s Judo at the London Games

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London Olympics 2012

Following a disappointing loss in the quarterfinals, Rafael Silva roared back to make it onto the medal podium at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old Brazilian judoka won the bronze medal in the men’s judo over-100kg class at the London Games by beating South Korea’s Kim Sung-Min on Friday.

Rafael Silva
Silva lost in the quarterfinals to Russia’s Alexader Mikhaylin but came back to win his next two fights against the Hungarian Barna Bor and Kim to earn his place on the podium.

Silva dominated the entire match against the passive South Korean, who did no more than defend himself until the judges handed him a penalty – his second – which meant a yuko score for Silva and the victory.
Rafael Silva
In his only loss at the London Games, Silva started out in command of the fight against the Russian, but as the minutes passed physical exhaustion began to show and he eventually lost control of the match.

After both the regulation five minutes and the three overtime minutes ended in a tie, the judges unanimously decided that Mikhaylin was the judoka who merited a place in the semi-finals.

Silva’s bronze medal performance makes him the fourth Brazilian to win a medal in Olympic judo at the London Games, following medals by his fellow teammates Sarah Menezes, Felipe Kitadai and Mayra Aguiar.