Maria Celia Laborde won a gold medal for the USA at the Guadalajara Grand Prix. Hers was a small category and after winning her first match, against Jade Perez of Mexico with a pair of drop sode-tsurikomi-goshi, she was in the semifinal. There, she defeated Tamar Malca of Israel by penalties in Golden Score.
This put her into the final against Eva Perez Soler of Spain. Laborde scored very early on, in the first 10 seconds of the match, with a drop seoi-nage for yuko. Then, she held onto that lead until the end of match time.
This is the first IJF gold medal the 35-year-old Laborde has won for the USA, which she has represented since 2022. Laborde had previously fought for Cuba and in 2014, she had won a gold medal at the Havana Grand Prix.
Blog posts
Distria Krasniqi (KOS) was the queen of the -52's in Zagreb. She won all her matches by ippon, There was no one even close to her.
Team USA got a total of 3 golds, 9 silvers and 5 bronzes. The three gold medalists were Christoper Velazco at -60kg, Daniel Liubimovski at -100kg and Mariah Holguin at -57kg.
An overview of the winners from Day 3 of the Zagreb Grand Prix, including the performance of American players.