Photo: official site of the event.

Havana, February 18 (RHC)-- Maylín del Toro won the silver medal in the 63 kg division at the Tel Aviv Judo Grand Slam 2023, in Israel.

The Santiago native defeated Brazil's Tamires Crude in her first bout by hansoku-make when she was losing by waza-ari with seconds to go.

Then she defeated the French Manon Deketer in the second round by waza-ari and in the quarterfinals against the British Lucy Renshall by waza-ari-awasete-ippon. In the semifinals she had to face the local Gili Sharir, whom she left on the way by penalties.

In the final, she was widely surpassed by Canadian star Catherine Beauchemine-Pinard, who defeated her by ippon.

With this medal, Maylin improves the third place achieved just a couple of weeks ago in the Grand Slam of Judo in Paris 2023, and also catapults the Cuban delegation to 11th place in the medal standings of an event with 52 participating nations.

Another outstanding performance came from Magdiel Estrada (73 kg), ranked fifth in his section. He was on the verge of the podium when he lost bronze to Bulgaria's Mark Hristov by ippon in the golden rule, after five and a half minutes of combat.

Maikel Mkencie (81 kg) also competed for Cuba, who lost to Spain's José María Mendiola in just 1:42 minutes by ippon.

The Cuban representative in the 70 kg, Idelannis Gómez, suffered the same fate in her first presentation: she lost to the local Maya Kogan by waza-ari.

France dominates the overall medal tally with three titles. It is followed by Canada with two and then Israel, Georgia, Great Britain and Switzerland with one.

On the closing day, Cuba's Olympic and world medalist Idalys Ortiz (+78 kg) and world medalist Ivan Silva (90 kg), who could help the island move up the medal table, will take to the tatamis for Cuba.