Kelita Zupancic takes PanAm Championships title and beats World Champ Alvear

What an incredible day for Kelita Zupancic! For the first time ever, she won against Colombian athlete Yuri Alvear - a three-time World Champion with a waza-ari at the last minute, a great performance. Kelita Zupancic enabled Team Canada to start the Pan American Judo Championships on the right foot Friday, with her gold medal win in Edmonton, Alberta, while teammates Antoine Valois-Fortier and Kyle Reyes both earned bronze medals.

"Kelita was eager for this match, since she had been paired Alvear several times in the past. It’s a bit of sweet revenge – especially given that the competition is in Canada; this will be a memorable moment in her career,” confirmed Team Canada Head Coach Nicolas Gill.

After receiving a pass to exempt her from the opening round in the Under 70kg class, Whitby’s Zupancic met Quebec teammate Alix Renaud-Roy on the tatami – Renaud-Roy having previously bested Mexico’s Debanhi Ochoa. The Ontario resident won the round thanks to penalties. 

Facing Ecuador’s Vanessa Chala in the semi-final, Zupancic – ranked fourth in the world in her class – scored the victory with an ippon. In the final round against Columbia’s Yuri Alvear (ranked third in the world; current World Champion) the Canadian judoka won the gold medal. 

Antoine Valois-Fortier may have finished with a bronze medal, but it was a bitter victory. The world-number-two ranked judoka in the Under 81kg class started his day with a win by ippon against Chile’s Juan Diego Turcios. Things soon changed however, as Valois-Fortier of Beauport (Quebec) was himself beaten by ippon in the semi-final against Argentina’s Emmanuel Lucenti (ranked 34^th).

In the bronze medal final, Valois-Fortier once again found his winning ways and dominated Columbia’s Pedro Castro – winning the bout in penalties.

“I have to say I’m disappointed; I didn’t come here for this result. Over the past few months while preparing I had a lot of minor but bothersome injuries so I don’t feel like I’m the most ready right now,” commented Valois-Fortier.  “In the semi-final, I was generally ahead but I was surprised by that ippon and lost. The bronze medal round was pretty close, but I was able to put in some sold attacks and was able to win,” he added. 

“Antoine was better technically – more so than I expected. However I would also say that his decision-making wasn’t as clear as we would have liked. Overall, I think he was worried a little too much by a feeling of lack of training, and that was enough to keep him off his game at certain key points. In the end a small error sadly cost him a spot in the finals, but honestly a few short weeks ago, even his participation here was looking iffy; had we been able to tell him at that point that he’d finish with a bronze I’m sure he would have been happy,” analyzed Coach Gill.