PARIS – Rebeca Silva’s gold medal in judo at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games had a special flavor. In addition to being the first to debut at the Paralympics, the young Brazilian changed a callus on her shoe during the Paris 2024 cycle. In the Paralympic title decider, Rebeca defeated Cuban Sheyla Hernandez.
The final was quite tense. The Cuban tried a faster fight, trying more insertions to try to tire Rebeca. The strategy initially did not seem to work and the Brazilian obtained a waza-ari. In the final part of the fight, Rebeca seemed tired and still used two shidos to try to secure the result. Even with the victory by a whisker, she managed to declare the triumph with a pin.
“She’s very fast, very agile, she explodes very well. You have to be very careful,” he praised. “There was another strategy there to think, also to breathe, obviously, to really think about what I was going to do. I needed to breathe because she was starting to want to dominate me, so I had to breathe, think deeply,” he explained.
Suffocated
Rebeca Silva and Sheyla Hernandez have had exciting duels in recent years. One of the most recent and controversial took place at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago. In the Chilean capital, the two met in the semifinals and the Cuban prevailed after a referee error. The judge had signaled the interruption of the fight, but apparently withdrew. During this interval, Sheylla applied an ippon and won the fight.
“I argued with her a few times. I don’t remember how many there were, but I know she had won the last two,” Rebeca said. “Because of my hesitation, I shouldn’t have relaxed my body. In the end I relaxed. But it was her merit, of course. It’s the referee’s fault, but it’s the judoka’s merit. We can’t say much,” she acknowledged, recalling the battle of Santiago.
“But that’s exactly why she was a little suffocated. She was very, very suffocated, even more because she screamed in my face when she won. She was very suffocated, but now she’s let it go, in the best way possible,” joked Rebeca Silva.
Source: Terra
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