Half-Heavyweight (≤78 kilograms), Women

Cuba’s Yurisel Laborde had won the 2005 and 2007 World Championships but at the Pan American Judo Championships in May 2008 in Miami, Florida, she defected to the United States and was not available to compete for Cuba at Beijing. At first, although it was known she had disappeared, it was not certain if she had defected. But a week later she retained immigration lawyer Wilifredo “Willy” Allen and applied for political asylum. Laborde commented on her defection, “A Cuban athlete’s life is a hard, complicated life with a lot of sacrifice involved. You don’t see the fruits of your labor. I played for 12 years on the national team, and I was never able to get a home or a car. I was twice the champion of the world, and I couldn’t have a home or a car.”

In Laborde’s absence the class was relatively open, although Japan’s Sae Nakazawa had been runner-up at the last two Worlds. But Nakazawa lost her opening round match to Italy’s Lucia Morico, and would not even get to the repêchages. Cuba had selected Yalennis Castillo to replace Laborde. She made it to the final where she faced China’s Yang Xiuli. Castillo had no international record while Yang had won only a bronze at the 2006 Asian Games. The final was long, dull, and passive. It went to extra time and after five minutes of golden score time, no points had been scored. Yang was declared the winner by yusei-gachi in the hantei. The two bronze medalists were Stéphanie Possamai (FRA) and Jeong Gyeong-Mi (KOR), who had also been the bronze medalists at the 2007 Worlds.