Christa Deguchi gets her "best revenge" twice

Christa Deguchi is a picture of resilience. Back in 2014, while still a teen, she showed great potential, getting silver at the World Junior Championships. Unfortunately for her, in Japan, the -57kg division at the time was dominated by Kaori Matsumoto, who only retired after the Rio Olympics in 2016. However, by 2017, Tsukasa Yoshida had taken over as the top Japanese player in the -57kg category.

As a result, Deguchi was completely shut out from international competition for three years. Her last competition, fighting for Japan, was on 26 October, 2014, in the Teams event at the World Junior Championships.
Exactly three years later, on 26 October 2017, Deguchi reemerged as an international competitor, but this time representing Canada.
Her initial foray back into world judo was not so successful. She lost her first matches at the 2017 Abu Dhabi and Tokyo Grand Slams. However, at the 2018 Paris Grand Slam she won the gold medal.
Frank Sinatra once said the best revenge is massive success. Deguchi got just that, winning gold at the 2019 Tokyo World Championships defeating Japan’s representative, Yoshida, in the final by ippon.

It was widely assumed she would be Canada's representative for the -57kg division at the Tokyo Olympics. As it turned out, Jessica Klimkait was chosen instead after winning gold at the 2021 World Championships (Deguchi failed to medal there). To make matters worse, at the 2022 World Championships, Deguchi once again failed to medal while Klimkait got a bronze.
It would have been easy to write Deguchi off as having peaked in 2019 but she has a way of bouncing back.  In the 2023 Tel Aviv Grand Slam in February, she lost in the final to rival and teammate Klimkait. Then in the 2023 Antalya Grand Slam in March, she lost in the final to Rafaela Silva of Brazil. But at the event that really matters, the 2023 Doha World Championships, Deguchi defeated Japan’s Haruka Funakubo in the final to secure her second World title. Klimkait got a bronze in that competition. Both were now in fierce contention to become Canada's representative for the 2024 Paris Olympics

The 2024 Abu Dhabi World Championships would be the event to determine whether Deguchi or Klimkait would go to the Paris Games. In that event, Deguchi was the one who made it to the final, although she lost by penalties to Huh Mimi of South Korea. Klimkait got a bronze again, and thus would be the one staying home.
In Paris, Deguchi once again got her best revenge, this time defeating Huh in the final. Huh tried to play the shido game again but Deguchi had learned her lesson from Abu Dhabi, and knew how to handle the feisty Korean. This time, it was Deguchi who would emerge victor. She was Olympic champion!

Deguchi ends 2024 atop the IJF World Rankings with 10,140 points and an impressive record of an Olympic gold, two World titles, three Pan-American Championship golds, and 17 IJF World Tour golds