Canadian judokas capture four gold medal in El Salvador

Canada topped the tables of the Panam Open in El Salvador. Brazil ended second with three gold medals. USA and Argentina won two titles.

It was an all Canadian final Under 70 kg when Alix Renaud-Roy defeated Kelita Zupanzic. Three Canadians also brought home bronze medals: Zachary Burt and Louis Krieber-Gagnon in the Under 81 kg class, and Ignacio Rodriguez in the Over 100 kg class.

The match between Renaud-Roy, 38th in the world, and Zupancic, 4th, went the distance and ended when a single penalty was awarded, with 90 seconds left on the clock.

“I’m happy I beat Kelita,” said the La Pocatière athlete. “A shido gave me the victory, but I think it could have gone either way. Still, I managed to stay ahead until the end.”

 “What a formidable opponent! She really is the athlete to beat. It’s the first time I’ve beaten her, and I couldn’t be happier.”

On Saturday Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard  won gold Under 57kg, Ecaterina Guica Under 52kg and Stéfanie Tremblay U63kg while Jessica Klimkait (Under 57 kg) and David Ancor (Under 73 kg) lost their final matches and finished second, and Antoine Bouchard (Under 66 kg) won his match for the bronze.

“I achieved the goals I had set for myself,” summarized Beauchemin-Pinard. “I wanted to improve my ground work, and I won two bouts on the ground. I wanted to score more, and I dropped my first and second opponents. I worked on my patience to control my opponents and to time my throws just right.”

Klimkait, before surrendering in the final match, won by ippon against Joselin Plaza, from Ecuador, and Gabriela Narvaez, from Argentina. The semi-final pitted Klimkait against Colombia’s Yadinis Amaris, and the Whitby, Ontario native won by waza-ari.

Guica, who was also exempted from the opening round, beat Salvadoran Fatima Gomez by ippon, and then Dominican Maria Garcia by waza-ari. In the final match, it was American Angelica Delgado’s turn to win by ippon.

To get her hands on her gold medal, Tremblay had to fight four times. The hardest of those four matches was against Ecuador’s Karla Campos, and it ended in a victory by yuko for the Saguenay athlete. After that, it was one ippon after the other: against American Hannah Martin, Brazilian Ketleyn Quadros and Ecuadorian Estefania Garcia.

“My semi-final (against Quadros) was pretty tough,” said Tremblay. “She was one of the best in the Under 57 kg, the class I belonged to before, and I won the bout by immobilizing her on the ground. In the final (against Garcia), I was losing because I had gotten penalized twice, and when I risked everything to try to throw her, she counterattacked. I won on the ground, in the last few seconds.”