Montréal, August 3, 2014 – It was another disappointing day for the Canadian contingent, Sunday, at the Junior European Cup presented in Berlin, Germany. None of the judokas in action were able to qualify for the medal round.

Jonah Burt (-81 kg) went home with a record of three wins and two losses, good for a 7^th place classification. He fought in three repechage matches, winning the first two by way of ippon against the Kazakh Salamat Zhurkabayev and the German Tom Goerlitz. He then went on to lose in the third contest, falling by an ippon to the Bulgarian Ivaylo Ivanov after taking two penalties.

In the same category, Louis Krieber-Gagnon finished in 9^th, coming away with a record of 2-2. He was eliminated in his second fight of the repechage, falling to the Russian Gamzat Zurgaraev on penalties (2).

“Obviously it’s not the result I was hoping for today,” Krieber-Gagnon explained. “On a positive note, if you take out my defeat to the Georgian (Levan Gugava) where I didn’t do so well, I feel like overall, today’s performance was my best effort in any competition over the last three months.”

It was a frustrating tournament for head coach Sasha Mehmedovic’s protégés, and he wasn’t too shy to admit it. “The competition level here was quite high, and it turned out to be too difficult for our junior judokas,” Mehmedovic commented. “Jonah Burt and Louis Krieber-Gagnon fought with a lot of tenacity, but were unable to classify for the medal round.”

In the under 63 kg class, Béatrice Valois-Fortier lost her one and only bout of the day, falling to the German Anna Lachetta after taking two penalties.

“I had a very bad outing in Berlin today,” Valois-Fortier indicated. “I lost my first contest by two penalties against a girl who I’d beaten before. I’ll be heading back to Montréal tomorrow for a training camp which will give me a good opportunity to work on the mistakes I made today.”

Martin Rygielski (+100 kg) also lost his first match of the day, succumbing to defeat at the hands of the Brazliian Cezarino Silva, who won with two waza-aris and a yuko.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada