Quebecers had a disappointing day in judo on Tuesday at the Olympic Games. Both among the best in the world, Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard and François Gauthier-Drapeau lost in the quarterfinals and then failed to make up for it in the repechage stage.
Second in the world rankings in the under 63 kg category and bronze medalist at the Tokyo Games in 2021, Catherine Beauchemin-Rivard, 30, was aiming for gold, but also said she was arriving in Paris with peace of mind and her only real ambition was to “give it her all”.
Fifth in the world in the under 81 kg category, but in his first competition of such magnitude, François Gauthier-Drapeau, 26, was a little nervous at the beginning, but feels he quickly found his marks.
Hopes were high after Christa Deguchi won the first Olympic gold medal in Canadian judo history the day before in the under 57 kg category.
But Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard was defeated in the quarterfinals by Slovenian Andreja Leški, who would go on to win gold at the end of the day. Still with a chance of winning a bronze medal through the repechage mechanism, she came up against Kosovar Laura Fazliu, against whom she was quickly assessed two penalties that forced her to take more risks in the fight.
As for François Gauthier-Drapeau, it was in the quarter-finals that the accumulation of penalties cost him victory, while in the repechage, he was stopped by the world number one, the Belgian Matthias Casse.
“It’s shocking. I knew him. It was probably my best fight with him,” said the judoka from Alma, his voice still quavering. When the Belgian grabbed his arm to try to immobilize him, he didn’t realize the danger quickly enough. “If I had had, maybe, a little more bite, I might have been able to avoid this. It’s not so much the funThis feeling-there, to know that I could have done better. […] But for the rest of my day, I think it’s mission accomplished.”
Catherine also arrived in front of the journalists with red eyes. “I felt ready. […] I had a good plan and I followed it. […] I said I wanted to give it my all, and that’s what happened.” She noted that, again on Tuesday, the competition produced many surprises, with both the world number one and the reigning world champion having been eliminated very early in the contest.
Not the referee’s fault
As for the refereeing, she didn’t deny that it probably played a role in her defeat in the repechage, but she didn’t want to find an excuse for it. Neither did François Gauthier-Drapeau. “When things go well on your side, you’re happy, and when things go well on the other side, it’s boring. I tell myself that, if we take the average, it’s correct.”
“Our coach told me: ‘For about twenty minutes, I give you the right to cry, then after, you move on and I don’t want to hear about it anymore. You think about your next fight.'”
That head coach is Antoine Valois-Fortier. “The day started off really well. When I saw that we had both in the quarterfinals, I thought we would manage to put at least one person on the podium. I’m a little disappointed, but extremely proud of both of them. They were very combative. They sold their skin very dearly. They really have nothing to be ashamed of in their performance.”
Crazy and family atmosphere
The atmosphere was wild on Tuesday in the temporary Grand Palais, on the Champ-de-Mars, which hosts judo competitions during the Games. This sport is one of the most popular in the country. Judokas have been spoiled in this regard for a few editions of the Olympic Games: those in Rio were also held in a judo country, while those in Tokyo were a real return to the birthplace of the sport.
Commanded by the equestrian statue of a French marshal from World War I, which had to be incorporated into the temporary stadium because it was there, the crowd exploded with joy every time one of the two local champions competing that day stepped onto the tatami. One spectator had brought a trumpet, another a whistle, while the others screamed their lungs out and stamped their feet as loud as they could on the metal floors of the stands. After one of their own lost, the audience spontaneously sang The Marseillaise to console him.
The two Quebecers also had their supporters. Especially François, whose family had come to the stadium in droves. “There’s my mother, my father, my sister, my brother. My girlfriend is there too. My godfather is there, with my cousin, my cousin. I have another cousin who is there, my aunt is there, my godmother is there with her buddy…I felt like I had 2,000 people cheering me on.”
There are still two Canadians in the individual judo competition, Ana Laura Portuondo Asasi (+78 kg) and Shady Elnahas (-100 kg). Then comes the team competition on August 3.
“The most important thing for the athletes will be to recover from the whirlwind of emotions. I would say to them: ‘Go crash. Go see your loved ones. We will talk [de la suite] “when the time comes,” their head coach said.