Natalie Powell of Great Britain is back in the IJF World Tour with a bang. The experienced judoka noticed that there are some youngsters in the scene such as Israeli Inbar Lanir who again reached the final.
Entering the U78kg category seeded 6th. Natalie Powell had an opening-round bye before victories against Linda Politi (ITA) and Beata Pacut-Kloczko (POL) progressed her to the Semi-Finals, writes “Judo Inside”. Powell booked her place in the final in style, defeating 3x Olympic bronze medallist and double World Champion Mayra Aguiar (BRA) by ippon.
Top seed and world number 3 Inbar Lanir (ISR) awaited Powell in the Final. As the clock ticked past the 90-second mark, Powell went to ground applying an arm lock, which subsequently forced her opponent to tap out, handing Powell her 4th career Grand Slam gold medal.
Powell has more experience than Lanir, but the Israeli is in excellent form. She is powerful and her ne-waza is excellent, it shows that she works on it daily. The nice thing about judo is that it’s a two way thing and it turns out that Powell is also an expert on the ground. In her first opportunity she strangled Lanir, who lost a final again, showing a lot of consistency but not perfection. Powell, on the other hand, added her fourth gold from the grand prix level.
In the prerounds, Inbar Lanir against the Cuban Kaliema Antomarchi is the guarantee of many kilowatts on the tatami. The referee judged that the Cuban did not score a waza-ari that from the stands seemed like a sure thing and Lanir accepted the gift, immobilised Antomarchi and removed a very uncomfortable stone from her shoe. The doors of the final were open, the title was visible in the distance, but in this category there is always a Dutch woman to count on.
You can find the full coverage HERE.
