Carmen Herrera (Spain) successfully defended her Judo Women's -70kg Paralympic title at the Workers' Gymnasium on Tuesday, September 9, defeating Mexico's Lenia Ruvalcaba by ippon to win Spain's first Judo medal of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
Herrera gained an early lead with a couple of yukos, forcing the Mexican judoka onto the defensive. Herrera sealed the gold medal and an outstanding series of performances with a throw for ippon in the fourth minute.
Still the 22-year-old Mexican and 2007 ISBA World Championship runner up will be happy with the impressive performances that led her to silver and Mexico's first Women's Judo medal of the Games.
Herrera had earlier dispatched Jordan Mouton (United States) with a 16-second ippon before winning by yuko against Sanneke Vermeulen (the Netherlands) in the semifinals.
Ruvalcaba beat Sweden's Nicolina Pernheim in her first match by waza-ari-awesete-ippon and defeated Russia's Tatiana Savostyanova in her semifinal by ippon.
In the bronze medal matches, Savostyanova won another bronze to add to the one she won in the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games, defeating Nikolett Szabo (Hungary) inside 10 seconds by throwing the Hungarian for ippon.
Savostyanova's medal was Russia's fourth Women's Judo bronze medal of Beijing 2008 (following Victoria Potapova -48kg, Alesya Stepanyuk -52kg, Madina Kazakova -63kg).
In the other match, Vermeulen won bronze by beating Pernheim on points.
(BOCOG September 9, 2008)