Montréal, October 5, 2025 – British Columbia’s Carla Van Zyl made an big impression at her first Junior World Judo Championships, where she finished seventh in the under-57 kg category on Sunday in Lima, Peru.

Photo: IJF, Gabriela Sabau
Carla Van Zyl (in white).

In her fourth and final bout of the day, the Canadian judoka bowed out to Slovenia’s Jevgenija Gajic, who won by ippon. However, she had earlier defeated Peru’s Luciana Julca and Switzerland’s Mirja Pollheimer in back-to-back matches, before losing to Bianca Reis of Brazil in the quarter-finals.

“Carla performed very well, especially considering that it’s her first year as a junior. She’s one of the youngest [athletes] here,” said Canadian coach Antoine Bouchard. Van Zyl recently won a bronze medal at the Junior Pan-American Games in Asunción, Paraguay.

“She ranked in Europe a few times this year, and she’s one of Canada’s top prospects, so we know she has a lot of potential. She did well today [Sunday] and was able to advance pretty far. [. . .] With a little more experience under her belt, I think she would have been a contender for a medal.”

In the same weight class, Laurence Gagnon began her day by facing off against Michela Terranova of Italy, the reigning junior European champion. The Québécoise pushed the match into overtime, where her opponent threw her to the ground.

“[Terranova] was the top seed. Laurence fought well and it ended up being pretty tight, but Laurence made a slight error that cost her the match. She was a tough opponent,” added Bouchard.

On the men’s side, Alberta’s Luke Thomson (-66 kg) got his day off to a good start with a victory over Peru’s Hector Mieres, but then lost to Dilshodbek Hamroyev of Uzbekistan.

“[Luke] also had to fight a top-seeded opponent (Hamroyev), but he did a good job. He made an error that allowed his opponent to counter-attack, but still, he did well, and earlier, he had won his first bout relatively easily,” explained the coach.

Ekaterina Danilkov (-48 kg), Vincent Nepton (-60 kg), and Daniil Kremerman (-66 kg) were all eliminated in their first bouts of the day.

On Monday, Catherine Toshkov and Loika Robertson will compete in the women’s under-63 kg division. In the men’s tournament, Fahd Fithane will fight in the under-73 kg weight class, while Artem Neyolov and Arthur Karpukov test their mettle in the under-81 kg category.

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Written by Sportcom for Judo Canada

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