TWO GOLDS FOR AFRICA IN DÜSSELDORF

Africa was represented by 32 athletes from six nations (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Togo and Tunisia) in the IJF Grand Prix Düsseldorf 2010. And they came back home with good reasons to celebrate: not less than two gold medals (52kg and +100kg) and five 5th places were won by the African judokas. In the first day of competition in the Phillipshalle, Soraya Haddad (third place in the Olympic Games Beijing 2008) came back to the highest step on the podium after a period away from the medals. On her way to gold, she had to beat some of the strongest judo nations and this includes Russia, Japan, two German athletes and Portuguese Joana Ramos in the final by ippon. On Sunday, the day spotlight was for the Egyptian Islam El Shehaby. After two consecutives defeats to Japanese Kenji Suzuki (Olympic Champion in Athens 2004), El Shehaby succeeded for glory in the final. The previous week in the World Cup in Vienna, the Egyptian heavyweight had already won bronze by beating two Japanese in his way. “Everything went wonderful for me. I have lost to Suzuki in the past two competitions we met in the last months and I have been studying hard his technique. And in Germany this time I made no mistake and managed to win. I think I am fighting well with Japanese”, said El Shehaby, who last week in the Vienna World Cup beat two Japanese judoka in his way for bronze. Meriem Moussa (ALG, 52kg), Hesham Mesbah (EGY, 90kg), Safoune Attaf (MAR, 81kg), Rania El Kilali (MAR, +78kg) and Anis Chedly (TUN, +100kg) all finished in the fifth place after loosing their combats in semifinal. The next IJF major event will be the Grand Prix Tunis, on May 8-9. As in Düsseldorf, it will share US$ 150.000 prize money and world ranking list points. In 2009, the heavyweight Anis Chedly won gold for the home country. Manoela Penna, IJF Media Director