Montreal, October 13, 2018 – Canadian judokas won a silver medal and 2 bronze medals on Saturday at the Cancun Grand Prix, in Mexico. Quebecoise Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard had an almost-perfect day and won the silver medal in the -63 kg category.

Her only loss was during the final against Austrian Magdalena Krssakova. The gold slipped through her fingers when the fight came to an end with an ippon from the Austrian after almost 5 minutes.

In the semifinal, the athlete from Saint-Hubert faced Austrian Katharina Haecker and defeated her by waza-ari.

Earlier in the day, during the preliminary rounds, Beauchemin-Pinard dominated both Russian Valentina Kostenko and British Amy Livesey by ippon.

Bronze for Zupancic and Margelidon

Ontarian Kelita Zupancic also had a good day and won a bronze medal in -70 kg.

After losing by waza-ari in the semifinal bout against Belgian Gabriella Willems, Zupancic used her frustration to win her next fight, the bronze-medal bout, against German Laura Vargas Koch.

“Taking a medal home is always the goal. I’m competing a lot so the I’m just using these events as training. I was flat in my semifinal fight, I wasn’t being aggressive, but I got mad and brought it for the bronze final,” explained the Whitby native.

Before getting to the semifinal, Zupancic defeated Mexican Jessica Gallegos and Australian Aoife Coughlan by ippon in the preliminaries.

Quebecois Arthur Margelidon had to go through repechage, where he eliminated Hungarian Miklos Hungvari by waza-ari, to get to the bronze-medal fight against Brazilian Eduardo Barbosa.

After a slow start, the athlete from Montreal had the upper hand with the Brazilian and won the bronze medal in -73 kg.

“It went really well, and it’s good to be back on the podium after a tough competition during the World Championships,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Quebecois won by ippon against Swiss Timo Alleman before being defeated by waza-ari by Brazilian Marcelo Contini.

“I made a mistake with the Brazilian, and it cost me a spot in the gold-medal fight. I had 2 shidos and I tried to attack while he was still solid on his leg, and he countered me.”

Also fighting for a bronze medal in -81 kg, Étienne Briand had to settle for a 5^th place after being defeated by ippon by German Tim Gramkow.

In the preliminary rounds, Briand first won by ippon against Czech Jaromir Musil, but he then lost by ippon against Belgian Sami Chouchi. In repechage, the athlete from Sept-Îles won by ippon against Spanish Alfonso Urquiza Solana.

Antoine Bouchard (-73 kg), from Saguenay, was eliminated after his first fight. Hungarian Frigyes Szabo quickly won by ippon.

Emily Burt (-70 kg) only fought once. She was defeated by waza-ari by Belgian Roxane Taeymans.

Stéfanie Tremblay (-63 kg) was also eliminated during her first fight, in which she faced Brazilian Alexia Castilhos.

Canadian team members Zachary Burt (-90 kg), Mohab El Nahas (-90 kg) and Shady El Nahas (-100 kg) will be in action on Sunday.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada
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