Paula Saldanha
Paula Marie Jeanne Saldanha (born March 6, 1972 in Funchal ) is a former Portuguese judoka who was Olympic seventh in 1992 and vice European champion in 1999.
Athletic career
The 1.63 m tall Paula Saldanha competed in the half-light weight class, up to 52 kilograms. In this weight class she won eleven Portuguese championship titles: 1989, 1990, 1992 to 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2002. In 1988 and 1991 she finished second behind Paula Pontes .
At the European Championships in Paris in 1992 , she finished fifth after losing in the battle for bronze to the Belgian Heidi Goossens . Three months later, the first Olympic tournament in women's judo took place in Barcelona . Saldanha won her first fight against the Mongolian Ravdangiin Dechinmaa after 14 seconds. In the second round she defeated the Canadian Lyne Poirier with a coca rating, in the quarterfinals she was defeated by the Dutch girl Jessica Gal after 3:15 minutes. In the hope round Saldanha won against Dina Maksutowa from the United Team and lost against the Italian Alessandra Giungi .
In 1994, Saldanha finished fifth at the European Championships in Gdansk, after losing in the semifinals against Ewa-Larysa Krause from Poland and in the battle for bronze against German Alexa von Schwichow . Only five years later Saldanha reached the semi-finals again at the European Championships in Bratislava in 1999 . With a victory over the Dutchwoman Deborah Gravenstijn she reached the final this time and received silver behind the British Deborah Allan . The following year she lost to the French Laetitia Tignola in the quarter-finals at the European Championships in Wroclaw in 2000 , in the hope round she was eliminated against the German Raffaella Imbriani and took seventh place.
After her active career, she became a referee at international judo tournaments.
Web links
- Tournament results at JudoInside.com
- Paula Saldanha in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Footnotes
- ↑ Match balance at judoinside.com
- ↑ Volker Kluge : Olympic Summer Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 - Atlanta 1996. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-328-00830-6 . P. 425f
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Saldanha, Paula |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Saldanha, Paula Marie Jeanne (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Portuguese judoka |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 6, 1972 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Funchal |