Montréal, September 23, 2012 – Alix Renaud-Roy climbed the podium with a third place finish in the under 70 kg category, Sunday, at the Europe Cup presented in Tampere, Finland, after winning two of the three bouts she took part in.

After receiving a bye into the second round of competition, Renaud-Roy beat the Russian Olga Pochkina with an ippon. The semifinals saw her take on the Russian Ekatarina Denisenkova in a fierce fight, where she eventually came up short.

In the bronze medal bout, she was able to defeat the Pole Karolina Talach by scoring a yuko. “It was one of the best results of my career, so obviously it was a great day for me, Renaud-Roy explained. The semifinal match was really tight, I did a good job of controlling the hand-to-hand battle, but with about a minute left I made a mistake and she took advantage by throwing me to ground for an ippon. It was another tough fight for bronze, but there I scored an yuko late on and then was able to hold on the rest of the way.”

In the +78 kg class, Sophie Vaillancourt was unable to take advantage of a first round bye, losing to the Latvian Sandra Jablonskyte, who was able to score two waza-ari and a yuko at her expense. In the repechage, the Quebecoise put herself in a position for one of the two bronze medals, thanks to a victory by ippon over the Pole Kamila Wasek.

It was the Latvian Santa Pakenyte, however, who would eventually claim the hardware, relegating Vaillancourt to a 5^th place classification.

Registered in the under 78 kg division, Ana Laura Portuondo-Isasi was eliminated in her very first bout, falling to the Russian Alena Prokopenko. Portuondo-Isasi did not receive a classification.

On the men’s side, Louis Krieber-Gagnon and Scott McGrandle, both fighting in the under 81 kg category, lost each of their two bouts on the day. As for Volodymyr Semyrozum (90 kg), he fell in his one and only bout, sending him home without a classification. In the end, none of the men’s team received a ranking.

A large number of Canadian judokas will be in action next weekend, at the World Cup competition presented in Rome, Italy.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada.