The Kelowna Judo Club was a force to be reckoned with at the B.C. Judo Championships in Abbotsford.
Nine members of the local club brought home seven medals from the provincial tournament last weekend.
Jake Black had an impressive couple of matches to claim gold in the boys 8 to 10 year-old division, while Rajan Sandhu took silver in the same division.
Ben Leatherdale had some really tough matches, securing a third place trophy in his 11-12 year, under 34 kg boys division, while Nic DeKergommeaux captured the gold in his 11-12 boys under 57 kg class.
On the girl’s side, yellow belt Madelyn Artiss had some big girls to contend with for her first competition and she fought strong, only to be pinned for the loss but completely ready for the next competition knowing what to expect now. Sophie DeKergommeaux earned a second place trophy, beating out a very strong girl with an impressive Ippon (perfect throw). There were two adults competing in the adult division, Chris Nan and Blaire Joseph. Chris, who comes from a jui jitsu background but is fairly new to judo excelled with two wins and two losses to place third.
“I was most pleased with Chris’ last fight because he didn’t use his jui jitsu to win the match – he demonstrated amazing stand-up judo with a superb Ippon throw,” said KJC coach Kathy Hubble. “Blaire also whumped his opponents with a couple of nice Ippons and narrowly lost only one match by penalty.”
Blaire ended up placing second and took home another nice trophy for his growing trophy-case.
“Overall, I was very satisfied with everybody’s performance at this championship,” Hubble added. “They fought really well and proved that Kelowna Judo Club is a competitive club and worthy of the hard-earned medals they are bringing home. Most of all, they had the best team spirit there!”
Sensei Kathy Hubble also recently returned from a competition—the All Women’s U.S. Championships in Ohio—and she also brought home four gold medals. She entered four divisions and won all 12 of her matches by Ippon.
“There were some tough girls down there and they made me work for it, but it was one of the most well-run fantastic tournaments I was lucky to be a part of… a great warm-up for World’s. Hopefully I can go over there with some confidence now.”
Kathy is heading to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates in mid-November for the Master’s (30 and up) World Championships in which there are 129 countries participating.
