Notable Performances at the Lima Grand Prix

Mary Dee Vargas Ley (CHI): -48kg Gold
Mary Dee Vargas Ley of Chile has been plugging away at the IJF World Tour since 2016, when she was just 20 years old. This year, she has finally got her first medals. In the Qingdao Grand Prix in September, she got a silver medal, her first ever IJF medal of any color. And this month, at the Lima Grand Prix, she won her first gold, defeating Coralie Gilly of France in the final. It was a close match with both players having a yuko each in regular time. Then, in Golden Score, Vargas Ley threw Gilly with ouchi-gari to score a waza-ari and secure the gold.



Dayyan Boulemtafes (FRA): -73kg Silver
Dayyan Boulemtafes of France had put in a disappointing performance in the World Junior Championships, (also held in Lima less than a week before the Lima Grand Prix), where he was thrown for ippon in under a minute in his first match. But he more than made up for it in the Grand Prix when he defeated the 2024 European, World and Olympic Champion Hidayat Heydarov by throwing him with sumi-gaeshi for ippon, in the second round. Boulemtafes made it all the way to the final. There, he lost to the experience Daniel Cargnin of Brazil but getting a silver is a commendable performance for this 19-year-old.



Amandine Buchard (FRA): -57kg Silver
Amandine Buchard of France is the only non-Japanese player besides Olympic Champion Diyora Keldiyorova of Uzbekistan to have beaten Uta Abe of Japan. She is an absolutely top-notch competitor at -52kg. But in Lima, she fought at -57kg. Scoring with her favorite drop kata-guruma in every single match, she made it all the way to the final, where she fought against her teammate Faiza Mokdar. The heavily-bandaged Buchard was the one who scored – with kata-guruma for yuko – but she ultimately lost the match by hansoku-make after receiving a third shido. Still, it was a remarkable achievement given that this wasn’t even her usual weight category.



Jessica Klimkait (CAN): -63kg Gold
Not every champion successfully transitions to a higher weight class. But Canada’s Jessica Klimkait has done quite well. Her first foray in the -63kg division was in the Baku Grand Slam where she won gold. Her next outing was the Tblisi Grand Slam. She didn’t do well there, existing in the first round. But in Lima, she was back in top form, defeating former World and Olympic Champion Rafaela Silva of Brazil in the quarter final, and then defeating another Brazilian, Nauana Silva, in the final, throwing her with drop sode-tsurikomi-goshi for ippon in the first minute. She is a force to be reckoned with in this category.



Lukas Krpalek (CZE): +100kg Gold
Veteran campaigner Lukas Krpalek, 34, of Czech Republic is a double World Champion and double Olympic Champion. He’s a triple European Champion. And in Lima, he’s just won his 10^th IJF World Tour gold medal. Krpalek is a complete fighter who is as capable in standing as he is on the ground. And he displayed that in Lima, where he won his first match, with a throw, his second match with groundwork, his semifinal match with a throw, and the final with groundwork. His final match was against Brazil’s Rafael Buzacarini, also 34, whom Krpalek pinned for ippon in Golden Score.

(Photos courtesy of IJF)