Spanish judo for the blind has already started its path towards the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and the new cycle has started with good sensations. Two golds and one bronze has been the loot harvested at the Egyptian Pyramids International. Daniel Gavilán and María Manzanero have taken the gold medal, while Sergio Ibáñez has climbed to the third place on the podium.
In the debut of María Fernández as coach, the Spanish judoka have scored at a good level in the first tournament of the season. Gavilán from Madrid, who did not qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Games, has started this stage with vigor after winning gold in the -63 kilos J2 category (visual impairment with remaining vision) on the tatami in Alexandria.
He started with a victory against Algerian Ishak Ouldkouider with a sankaku on the ground. In the semifinals he beat the Egyptian Mostafa Salama with an ippon by performing an ouchi gari and in the final he beat the Georgian Nukri Migrijanasashvili, also from sankaku.
Another gold went to the young María Manzanero, who in 2019 won gold at the Heidelberg Tournament (Germany) and silver at the European Youth Games in Pajulahti (Finland). The Madrid woman won a double fight against the Egyptian Marwa Ahmed in -57 kilos. In the first they were tied and in the end she won with a wazari of o goshi, and in the second she won by strangulation.
And the third Spanish medal was signed by Sergio Ibáñez, silver medalist in -66 kilos at the Tokyo Paralympic Games. The Aragonese made his debut in a new category, -73 kilos J2, since his previous weight will not be part of the program for the Paris 2024 event. In a group of four judokas, the Zaragozan suffered two defeats against the Georgian Giorgi Gamjashvili -rival who he beat in the semifinals in Tokyo- and Bachuki Shelia and beat his partner Adrián Taboadela. The one in Egypt has served as a test to accumulate filming for the first important challenge of the year, the Antalya Grand Prix (Turkey), which will be held in April.
