Cuban Silva earns Silver Medal in Judo World Championships

Cuban Ivan Silva won the silver medal today in the individual event of the 2018 Judo World Championships Seniors held in Baku, Azerbaijan, after losing in the final of the 90 kilograms division to Spanish Nikoloz Sherazadishvili.

The Georgian –born athlete and number third in the universal ranking needed the golden score to beat Silva and thus became the first Spanish man to win the world title in judo.

The bronze medals went to Japanese Kenta Nagasawa and French Axel Clerget, the latter was Silva´s victim in semifinals.

This is, so far, Silva´s best performance in the international arena, while the also Cuban Asley Gonzalez, London 2012 Olympic silver medalist and 2013 world monarch, ranked seventh when losing to German Eduard Trippel (5th) in the repechage.

Cuba´s other best performance so far in this major tournament is the 5th seat achieved by Maylin Del Toro in the women´s 63 kg division.

Women Kaliema Antomarchi (78) and Idalis Ortiz (+78) and man Andy Granda (+100) will debut for Cuba today and tomorrow while the team mixed event will be on Thursday.

After these results, the Caribbean island ranks eighth in the standings, with a silver medal, a fifth and a seventh place.

Japan appears on top of the medal table with five gold, five silver and three bronze medals, followed by France (1-1-2), South Korea and Iran (1-0-1) and Ukraine and Spain (1-0-0 each).