Montréal, April 2, 2022 – Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard earned her second consecutive fifth-place finish at a Grand Slam tournament on Saturday in Antalya, Turkey. The Québécoise was defeated by Austria’s Magdalena Krssakova in one of the two bronze medal finals in the under-63 kg group.

Beauchemin-Pinard had seized the upper hand in her last bout of the day by controlling her opponent and launching a series of varied attacks. The Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist had even scored a valuable point after flipping Krssakova onto the mat in the first minute of the match.

As the fight continued, the Canadian maintained control both on the ground and on her feet, but with 1:45 left, the Austrian managed to throw Beauchemin-Pinard onto her back and win by ippon.

“When I knocked her over, I really thought it was an ippon, but they only awarded me a waza-ari. I then checked how much time was left to get through if I didn’t manage to score again. That played with my mind a bit,” acknowledged the athlete.

“If I had kept up the intensity until the end, I would have won. I made the error of losing my focus. I though my attack had been worth an ippon, so I lost my concentration.”

The 27-year-old judoka therefore obtained the same ranking as she did at the Tel Aviv Grand Slam in February. However, she feels more satisfied with today’s ranking because the level of competition was higher.

“I obviously could have ended up on the podium, but still, I improve with each competition. For me, the important thing is to be at my best for the World Championships.”

In the semi-final, Beauchemin-Pinard bowed out to Britain’s Lucy Renshall, who went on to win today’s tournament and who also won the Abu Dhabi and Baku Grand Prix events last November. During today’s semi-final bout, the Québécoise did not immediately understand why she received a third penalty at 1:18 into overtime. The penalty automatically awarded the win to her opponent.

“I had just made three good attacks when she pushed me off the mat. I wasn’t happy about that penalty. I thought she should have received it. I was stunned! But I admit that I deserved my first two penalties, and I let the referee decide the outcome instead of taking the lead myself.”

Earlier in the day, the judoka from Saint-Hubert had defeated Hedvig Karakas of Hungary and Renata Zachova of the Czech Republic. Her quarter-final match against Brazil’s Keteyn QuadrosHer extended almost five minutes into overtime when she managed to immobilize her opponent on the ground.

On Friday, Canada’s Jessica Klimkait won the gold medal in the under-57 kg pool.

Brief appearances for the men

Beauchemin-Pinard’s male teammates did not last quite as long today. In the under-73 kg group, Montréal’s Antoine Bouchard and Arthur Margelidon ended their days with 1-1 records and did not rank.

In the under-81 kg pool, François Gauthier-Drapeau of Alma also finished with one win and one loss.

Étienne Briand of Sept-Îles lost his only fight of the day to Brazil’s Guilherme Schmidt, who went on to win the gold medal.

On Sunday, Louis Krieber-Gagnon (-90 kg), Kyle Reyes (-100 kg) and Shady El Nahas (-100 kg) will face off against the world’s elite judokas.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada

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Patrick Esparbès
Chief Operating Officer
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(514) 668-6279
p.esparbes@judocanada.org