Montreal, June 30, 2018 – Today in Montreal was the second day of the Canada Cup. Canadians continued to show they were a strong team against their opponents from all over the world.

Hana Kuno (-63 kg), who recently moved to Montreal to train with the national centre, was still in great shape a month after winning her national title in Calgary. She warmed-up for her final fight against American Sarah Golden by winning against her Canadian teammates Isabelle Harris and Roxanne Emond. “Today started out a little rough, but as the day progressed, it got better. I had really good warm-ups, my coach and I had our game plans ready, and I was really smart on the hands, I felt it out before attacking.” Today’s medal wasn’t her first international medal, but fighting and winning in front of a home crowd was “the best feeling ever. Wearing our emblem on my judogi fills me with such pride, I love being able to represent my country like this. Today, I’ve achieved one of my goals, and I’m really happy about that.”

Another winner today was François Gauthier-Drapeau (-81 kg) from Quebec. He had an all-Canadian day against his teammates Taylor Althouse in the preliminary round, Alexandre Arencibia in the semifinal, and Luka Khatelishvili in the final. “I felt good in general throughout the day. I knew all the athletes I was up against, so it made it easy to have a game plan for each of them, and I felt confident. I was a little nervous before the tournament, but I always am, so I wasn’t worried. I’ve won a few medals in Europe last year, so I was ready for the international-level fights this weekend. My family was in the stand, and I didn’t want to disappoint them, so it was great to be able to do that.”

A note-worthy moment of the day was the never-ending bronze-medal fight in the -73 kg between Canadians Daniel Chosack-Barkay and Max Teeuwen, which lasted over 10 minutes. Despite the exceptional length of the bout, both athletes gave it their all until the very end, when Teeuwen was awarded the victory.

The competition is still on tomorrow with the U16 and senior athletes at the Claude-Robillard Sports Centre, starting at 9 AM. A live streaming of the fights is available on judocanada.tv, results are updated live on ippon.org, and admission is free all day.

Hana Kuno and François Gauthier-Drapeau

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Written by Sarah Mailhot for Judo Canada

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