Idalys Ortiz, number one in the world

November 25, 2019

Cuba said goodbye to the Osaka Grand Slam with a silver medal courtesy of Idalys Ortiz (+78 kg), leader of the world and Olympic rankings with 8940 and 6330 points, respectively.

The champion of London 2012 fell to the gold medalist of the Tokyo world championship, Japanese Akira Sone. After two minutes of golden time, Sone applied the o-uchi-gari technique that earned her a point for waza-ari.

With this result, the particular matchup between the number one and two in the rankings stands at 1-3 in favor of the Japanese judoka. Without a doubt, this rivalry will present a much greater challenge for next year's summer games.

Prior to the final match, Ortiz had defeated Fanfan Liang (CHN), Tessie Savelkouls (NED) and Beatriz Souza (BRA) by ippon, ranked 92nd, 25th and seventh in the world rankings respectively, after receiving a bye in the first round. In 2019, the outstanding Cuban judoka won gold medals at the Paris and Dusseldorf Grand Slam tournaments, at the Hohhot and Budapest Grand Prix and at the Lima Pan American Games; in addition to second place at the World Championship in Tokyo, where she lost to Sone after receiving three shido.

Her last event this year will be the Qingdao Masters in China, from December 12-14, which will also be attended by Maylín del Toro (-63 kg) and Kaliema Antomarchi (-78 kg) for the women and Osniel Solís (-66 kg), Magdiel Estrada (-73 kg), Iván Silva (-90 kg) and Andy Granda (+100 kg) for the men.