Montreal, March 20, 2016 – Canada had quite a few representatives competing at the Breme Masters Tournament this Sunday in Germany. The last day of the competition was reserved for the Under 21s, and Shady El Nahas (Under 100 kg) took home a silver medal, while Kevin Gauthier (Over 100 kg) climbed on to the third step of the podium.

El Nahas had an excellent day and won almost all of his fights. Among his victims were German Daniel Zorn, French Alan Ardenoy, German Cailin Calder, and Latvian Aleksejs Akimenko. He was stopped in the final match, however, and the Under 100 kg gold medal went to Dutch Simeon Catharina.

”Shady is a very talented athlete,” said Team Canada coach Jean-Pierre Cantin. “He’s won medals here in the last two years, and while today is no surprise, it is a great achievement. On the mat, he’s a highly tactical and intelligent fighter.”

Kevin Gauthier got a bye into the second round of the competition, and had a good string of victories over Germany’s Lukas Rollwage and Kazakhstan’s Nurdaulet Zharylgapov. But he ran out of luck and lost to Japan’s Iori Yamada in the Over 100 kg semi-finals.

“The Japanese judoka ended up winning the tournament, and my match against him didn’t go very well at all,” confided Gauthier. “He really got the better of me.”

In repechage, the Canadian beat Dutch Mark Roon to put his hands on a silver medal.

“Kevin has made enormous progress this year, as today’s performance proves,” said Jean-Pierre Cantin. “There are still many things to work on, but Kevin is still young, and our sights are set on the 2017 World Junior Championships. A medal here brings him closer to achieving his goal.”

Persevering Judokas

Canadian Bradley Langlois (Under 73 kg) had a long day this Sunday, beating all of his opponents in the preliminary matches: German Emil Kosjanik, Dutch Ferron Touwn, French Dylan Roche and Kazakh Bekadil Shaimerdenov.

His podium hopes were shattered in his second repechage match, when he succumbed to France’s Damien Santelia.

“I thought I had a really tough day with tough fights, and even though I had six fights today, I’m still upset I didn’t get a medal,” explained Langlois. “My strategy for today was to wait out for the first two minutes of the fight and, once they were tired, to be more aggressive in the last two minutes of the fight, which worked effectively in most of my matches.”

Braxton Clark (Under 90 kg) lost his first match and, in repechage, was eliminated by Dutch Jelle Snippe. In the same weight class, Mohab El Nahas knew a similar fate. However, in repechage, he won two bouts before being shown the door by French Sofiane Ait Mohamed Amer.

In the Under 90 kg, Montrealer Louis Krieber-Gagnon was driven out of the tournament after three matches. He started out by beating German Philipp Haug and Dutch Bas Van Empelen, but in his third bout, France’s Nicolas Homo got the best of him.

“I lost by three shido to two,” said Krieber-Gagnon, who hoped to make it to the podium. “I should have put more pressure on him to take another shido.”

The day was a bit shorter for the other Canadians on the mat. Some of them were eliminated after two matches, as was the case for Julien Frascadore (Under 60 kg), Jacob Valois (Under 66 kg), Olivier Gobeil St-Amand (Under 81 kg) and Maxim Côté (Under 81 kg).

Yassin Youssef (Under 60 kg), Gabriel Juteau, Sava Antic (Under 73 kg), Alex Marineau (Under 73 kg), Dawson Mandel (Under 81 kg), Alex Colpitts (Under 90 kg) and Andrew Vienneau (Over 100 kg) didn’t move past their first match of the day.

European Cup

This Saturday, Saskatchewan‘s Warren Seib was competing in the Under 73 kg at the European Cup. He was eliminated after losing the opening round to Germany’s Loic Demierbe.