Four members of the Kelowna Judo clubs competed at the Okanagan Winter Classic Juijitsu competition in Vernon last weekend and brought home four medals.
The 4 have been cross-training at RDC Kelowna to hone their juijitsu skills, which come with a different set of rules, and is a different fighting style than judo.
And the training proved victorious. Dave Guthrie battled his way to a silver medal in the blue belt heavyweight division, only losing in the final to his long-time training partner Chris Smiley.
Mielye Mitchell fought in the white belt lightweight girls division and came away with the gold medal before adding a silver medal in another division, fighting six very tough matches.
Dan Maurice competed in the white belt middleweight division, with the most competitors entered, fighting extremely well, capturing the bronze medal.
Meanwhile there was also a judo competition the weekend before and Kelowna Judo Club member Bailey Leatherdale made the trek down to the Richmond Oval for the Vancouver International and placed a very respectable third place, amongst very stiff competition from all parts of North America.
“Congratulations to all,” said coach Kathy Hubble. “It’s pretty amazing that our guys can switch to another sport, hone their applicable skills so quickly, and bring home some impressive medals to our club. And Bailey is just getting better and better with every competition. We’re looking very much forward to our next big one, which is the Edmonton International in early April, which will be a good precursor to Nationals in July. A lot of the same athletes will be there, so it’ll be a good test.”
