Wang Lijing won China's third Gold medal of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games, in the Women's -57kg class at the Workers' Gymnasium on Monday, September 8.
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| Wang Lijing (blue) competes against Ramona Brussig. [Xinhua] |
She defeated Germany's Ramona Brussig by osaekomi ippon, and joins Cui Na (Women's -52kg) and Guo Huaping (-48kg) as Beijing 2008 gold medalists.
In the final, Wang attacked aggressively from the start, as she had done in her earlier matches, and her speed and strength were too much for Brussig, The German was constantly on the defensive, and Wang finally secured an ippon win after four minutes.
En route to the final, Wang defeated both Athens 2004 Paralympic bronze medalists. She beat Ekaterina Buzmakova (Russia) inside a minute in her first match, and then defeated Maria Monica Merenciano (Spain) in her semifinal, by osaekomi ippon.
Brussig defeated Duygu Cete (Turkey) in the preliminary round by hantei-gachi, before overcoming Mounia Karkar (Algeria) in her semifinal on points, thanks to a yuko and a single shido against Karkar.
In the bronze medal matches, Daniele Silva (Brazil) added another bronze to the one she won in Athens 2004, by beating Karkar (Algeria) on points with a waza-ari.
Silva might regret a mistake against Merenciano in the preliminary round where a hasty attack allowed the Spanish judoka to gain waza-ari and the bout, thus depriving Silva the chance for gold or silver.
In the other match, Merenciano also added another bronze medal to the one she won in the -63kg class at Athens 2004, beating Maria Keramida (Greece) on points.
(BOCOG September 8, 2008)