Canada still waiting for gold at Panam Games

Although the medals achieved at the second day of the Pan American Games in Toronto met the expectations, Canada is still waiting to celebrate a gold medal. At the most important Pan American event in four years Canada added two other silver medals, making three.

The winners were American Marti Malloy who claimed the gold in the tough category U57kg. Charles Chibana won the gold for Brazil U66kg and Magdiel Estrada of Cuba added second gold for Cuba equalizing Brazil so far.

One of the stronger judo categories in the American region is the women’s U57kg division. With World and Olympic medallist Marti Malloy, 2013 World Champion Rafaela Silva (BRA) and World’s #9 Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard we could expect some fireworks.

To reach the final, Beauchemin-Pinard disposed of Brazil’s Rafaela Silva, 4th in the world, in the semi-final. “She was world champion in 2013, and I just beat her for the first time and I’m really happy. We studied her judo and managed to employ the strategy we devised, and it worked. I had to push until the very end.”

In the final the Canadian was up against American Marti Malloy 4th in the world, who won the final match with a yuko. “I know I can beat her – I’ve done it three times,” said the Beauchemin-Pinard. “Today was the third time she’s beaten me too, so I hope next time I can regain my advantage!”

“I have to work on my psychological strategy in my fights with her, so she can come at me instead of being more defensive, because that’s a kind of judo I have a harder time with,” she added. “I think she knows that, so she took advantage of my weakness to beat me.”

Also at the Pan American Championships in Edmonton (CAN) it was Malloy who defeated Beauchemin-Pinard who did beat the American twice though.

Brazil saw Charles Chibana candidating himself for a good position at the Olympic Games in one year. Chibana is the World number six U66kg and he defeated Antoine Bouchard of Canada for the gold medal in Toronto. He had to be number though in a tremendously strong international weight category dominated by Japanese and European athletes at world level. But Chibana defeated Gustavo Lopez, Sergio Mattey and Antoine Bouchard, all by ippon. The final was a close match up until the very end. The two judokas had scored a yuko each, but Chibana got in an ippon with under 50 seconds on the clock. “Just looking at our rank positions, you could see he had an advantage. But I think I put up a good fight, because I didn’t make many mistakes.” Said Bouchard. It left the Canadians with a third silver medal.

The gold for men U73kg went to Cuba where Magdiel Estrada defeated Santana Lwilli, Augusto Miranda and finally Argentine Alejandro Clara in the final. Clara had beaten Alex Pombo (BRA) in the semi final. Estrada decided the match by one penalty for Clara.

Brazil and Cuba lead the medal table after two days, United States and Ecuador both won one category.