Montréal, February 26, 2012 – Marylise Lévesque came away with a 3^rd place finish in the under 78 kg class, Sunday, at the World Cup presented in Warsaw, Poland.

Before the competition began, Lévesque already knew she had no chance of qualifying for the London Games, even if she was able to pull off a gold medal performance. “Clearly I came here with a completely different state of mind, but my goal was still to the end the tourney on a high note,” Lévesque mentioned.

In the bronze medal bout, the Quebecoise beat the Russian Vera Moskalyuk, thanks to an ippon. “I was really happy about this victory because she beat me this autumn, she went on to explain.  In truth, I’m happy about everything today, because it’s pretty rare for me to win four bouts in the same day.”

Lévesque had a great start to her tourney, managing to score an ippon in just 50 seconds against the Dutchwoman Lena Buseman.  She came close to equaling this feat in her second bout, this time needing 1 min 37 s for the ippon versus the Pole Katarzyna Wtorkowska. She was slowed down in her next bout by the Chinese Zhehui Zhang, who defeated her with an ippon.

Lévesque would thus find herself in the L bracket, where she took on and defeated the Portuguese Yahima Ramirez by ippon, after just 2 min 32 s.  “It’s the first time I’ve beaten Ramirez, she admitted. I actually got lucky because she scored a waza-ari early on that could have been scored an ippon.  The bout went on, I stay focused, and finally found a way to get an ippon.  I guess this was my way of taking revenge; she beat me earlier in the season when I was the one trying to accumulate points for Olympic qualification.”

Roberge finishes 7^th

Also registered in the under 78 kg class, Catherine Roberge finished in 7^th position.  She won her first two matches, first against the Venezuelan Pinto Keivi by way of an ippon, and then next thanks to a waza-ari versus the Pole Darla Pogorzelec.  Pogorzelec actually scored a yuko, but shot herself in the foot with three costly penalties.

The Quebecoise then went on to drop her next bout versus the Frenchwoman Audrey Theumeo, who won with a waza-ari. In the L bracket, Roberge took two penalties in her first bout against the Cuban Yalennis Castillo, fouls that amounted to a score of a yuko in her opponent’s favor. These penalties would be enough to give the Cuban the victory after the 5 minutes of allotted time.

As for Ontarian Kelita Zupancic, fighting in the under 70 kg division, she ended her day with a record of one win and one loss, a result that denied her a classification.  After beginning well with an ippon versus the Kazakh Dinara Kudarova, she then came up short against the Spaniard Maria Bernabeu Avomo. 

Meanwhile at the men’s World Cup in Prague, Czech Republic, Kalem Kachur was defeated in his very first bout in the under 81 kg class, against the Mongol Tuvshinjargal Gan. Kachur was losing by a yuko when Gan, with 30 seconds left, managed to score an ippon to end the match.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada