Montréal, August 18th, 2014 – It was an underwhelming outing for judokas Jessica Klimkait and Louis Krieber-Gagnon on Monday, as they came away with 5^th and 7^th place finishes, respectively, on day 3 of the Summer Youth Olympic Games presented in Nanging, China.

The Ontarian Klimkait (-63 kg) finished in 5^th after winning two of four matches in her category.  She began well, winning her first two preliminary bouts, but followed that up with two successive losses, first in the semifinals against the Romanian Stefania Adelina, and then against the Austrian Michaela Polleres in the bronze medal fight.

“For sure, I would have preferred to have finished with a better result and a medal,” Klimkait acknowledged. “As far as my performance is concerned, I started well in most of my matches, moving well against some of the more physical judokas. If I had kept up a higher intensity throughout the day, focusing better on my holds and my maneuvers, I’m pretty sure I could have had a better result.”

As for Louis Krieber-Gagnon (-81 kg), he too came away with a record of two wins and two losses, good for a 7^th place classification. After finishing the prelims with a 1-1 record, he won his first match in the repechage versus the Tajik Salim Farukhi, winning by an ippon. He would fail to qualify for the bronze medal contest however, losing his second repechage bout by an ippon to the Montenegrin Arso Milic.

“It’s a pretty disappointing result for me, I wanted to finish much higher,” the Montrealer pointed out. “I felt like I could have fought with a lot more intensity.”

For coach Sasha Mehmedovic, the performances by his Canadian judokas did not quite meet his expectations. “I have mixed feelings,” he admitted. “I’m happy with how they did, but I also know they have the potential to beat the majority of their opponents. But sometimes it’s just not your day. They’ll just have to move on from this and get ready for the next competition.”

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada