Christa Deguchi is back in the race for Paris 2024

Christa Deguchi is back! With her gold medal at the Grand Slam in Baku she can again compete with the best. Although the field wasn’t the strongest it’s a good moral victory. It was her first ever victory and even medal in Baku and her sixth Grand Slam victory in her career. She won three times in Paris, Ekaterinburg, Antalya and added Baku to her list. She won the World title in Tokyo in 2019 and took bronze in Baku at the worlds in 2018.

Deguchi is a mix between a Canadian father and a Japanese mother, he acquired Canadian citizenship in 2017. She is a player with a high degree of perfection, with sharp throws and ground techniques and no gaps in all directions.

Her specialties on the mat are her strong right osotogari and osoto and ouchigari. The high level of technical accuracy is a major strength, but the greatest weapon is the strength of her body. She did not participate in the Tokyo Olympics, falling behind his domestic rival Jessica Klimkait. Initially, Canada's Olympic team was scheduled to be decided by a head-to-head showdown between two players ranked 8th or higher in the world, and it was expected that they would have a 6-0 exit advantage over rival Klimkait. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it became difficult to implement the event, and the selection method was changed so that the top performers at the Hungarian World Championships in June were selected as they were. Deguchi lost to Momo Tamaoki in the semi-finals of the same tournament, and Klimkait had already decided to advance to the finals at that point, so she missed out on participating.

For the Olympic Qualification for Paris 2024 this victory in Baku will help her a lot to get back in the IJF World Ranking and better seedings at future tournaments.

For Canada it was the 16^th victory at Grand Slam level, ten of them by the two rivals in the U57kg weight class, and one extra in 2014 by Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard, now a top athlete U63kg.