Montreal, June 30, 2019 – The U14/U16 Canada Cup was held at the Centre Pierre-Charbonneau in Montreal on Sunday. The young Canadian athletes had a chance, like their older teammates in the last few days, to compete against athletes from other countries, namely Jamaica and the United States.

Manitoban Sarah Ekosky, fighting in -57 kg, savoured a sweet victory. Despite a difficult morning, she was able to pull through and win the title in her category. The 15-year-old improved nicely since last year, since she was eliminated in the first round in 2018. “I’m really happy with my result today. I felt confident before coming here, and I worked a lot with Team Manitoba. I think it helped me a lot.” Ekosky is done for the season and will be back in competition in fall.

In the boys’ categories, Nicola Petrovic (+73 kg), from British Columbia, also had a rough start. “I felt really tired, and I wasn’t focused. I almost lost my final, but I was able to score in the last seconds to win.” It was the last chance for the national-championship bronze medallist to win a title in U16, as he will be competing in U18 next year. “The Canada Cup is one of the biggest tournaments I’ve been to. Everything is really well organized and it’s really impressive to see it all, so it’s very gratifying to win here.”

Jérémy Le Bris, the provincial coach of British Columbia, is very happy with the results of his team during the weekend. He would have liked to see more athletes from other countries and hopes to see their number increases next year. “We had 6 U16 athletes and they won 3 medals, one of each colour. We can see the results of the program now, there’s a nice improvement, especially with those in their second year,” explain Le Bris. 23 of his athletes will stay in Montreal for a little while, namely to watch the Grand Prix and attend a training camp. “It’s important for them to see the best in the world in action, it allows them to dream and give them motivation to push harder and maybe be on a Grand Prix mat one day,” he added. The Canada Cup was the last tournament because the tournaments of the summer, the Pan American Championships and the Cadet World Championships.

The results of the Cadet and Junior tournaments are available on www.judocanada.tv.

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Written by Sarah Mailhot for Judo Canada