Olympic judo 2016 results: Kosovo, Italy take gold on Sunday

Two-time world champion Majlinda Kelmendi earned Kosovo’s first-ever Olympic medal when she won her semifinal match against Misato Nakamura of Japan in the judo women’s 52kg division. That guaranteed her the silver medal at worst, but she also advanced to the final where she took on Odette Giuffrida of Italy, who took down Ma Yingnan of China in her semifinal match.

In that final, Kelmendi scored an early point and held on to win the gold medal. Kelmendi took a penalty for delaying and not initiating contact, and near the end of the match it was looking like she might get a second penalty. But she was just active enough, and when the clock expired she earned her gold medal, giving Giuffrida the silver.

Nakamura earned one of the bronze medals by besting Erika Miranda of Brazil. Natalia Kuziutina of Russia finished Yingnan to take the other bronze in the women’s 52kg division.

An Baul of South Korea beat Masashi Ebinuma of Japan in one semifinal in the men’s 66kg division. In the other, Fabio Basile of Italy took down Adrian Gombac of Slovenia to earn a spot in the final. That final saw Basiletake the win and the gold when he finished An Baul just a couple minutes into the match.

In the first of the bronze medal matches, it was Gombac who came out on the losing end, falling to Rishod Sobirov of Uzbekistan. The second bronze medal went to Ebinuma, who took down Antoine Bouchard of Canada to earn it.

The biggest upset of the day came in a match between Golan Pollack of Israel, ranked No. 8 in the world and Mathews Punza of Zambia, ranked 112th in the world in the men’s 66kg division. Obviously, Pollack was heavily favored, so much so that Punza’s incredible win in just under two minutes will likely go down as one of the bigger upsets of the entire Olympics once they’re all said and done. Punza got on top of Pollack and pinned him for an ippon to seal the win.

Unfortunately for him, Punza’s run came to an end in the round of 16 and he was eliminated.