Montreal, December 13, 2019 – Arthur Margelidon gave everything he had during his four matches on Friday at the Qingdao Masters in China, but a penalty and a costly mistake made him rank in seventh place in the -73 kg category.

The Canadian judoka started out strong by winning his first two matches, against Greek Georgios Azoidis and Swiss Nils Stump. The outcome was different in the third round when he faced Japanese Masashi Ebinuma.

After a fierce fight, a shido against Margelidon in overtime ended the bout. “It was very tight, but the referee decided to end the fight by calling a shido against Arthur. It was a questionable decision, but there was nothing we could do about it,” explained the Canadian team coach Sasha Mehmedovic.

Margelidon then went into repechage to fight Azerbaijani Rustam Rustam Orujov. Once again, the bout went into overtime to decide the winner. Orujov took advantage of a mistake by the Montrealer to win.

“During the entire fight, Arthur did well by controlling the rhythm, but in overtime, he tried an attack and was countered by his opponent, who won. He fought well today (Friday), but he was hoping for more than a seventh place,” commented Mehmedovic.

Both Margelidon’s opponents continued on to stand on the podium after each winning one of the bronze-medal contests.

Beauchemin-Pinard and Valois-Fortier Eliminated in the Second Round

Fighting in -63 kg, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard first defeated Mungunchimeg Baldorj, from Mongolia, by scoring an ippon after over six minutes. The Quebecoise was then eliminated in the second round by the eventual gold medallist, Japanese Nami Nabekura.

Antoine Valois-Fortier (-81 kg) had a similar day by defeating Netherlander Frank De Wit, fifth on the world ranking, in the first round, before being defeated by Russian Khasan Khalmurzaev.

Also in -81 kg, Étienne Briand was eliminated in the first round by South Korean Sunghoo Lee, who won by ippon. Kelita Zupancic (-70 kg) was also eliminated in the first round, where she faced Croatian Barbara Matic.

The last Canadian to fight in Qingdao, Shady El Nahas, will be in action on Saturday in -100 kg.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada

Information:
Patrick Esparbès
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p.esparbes@judocanada.org