(Paris) Shady Elnahas was Canada’s best hope for a men’s medal in judo. His title of vice-world champion in the under-100 kilograms category, acquired in May, allowed him to dream of a first Olympic final. But nothing went as planned.
From the start of his opening fight on Thursday morning against the Swiss Daniel Eich, Elnahas lacked enthusiasm and initiative. He even received two yellow cards for non-combativeness.
Regulation time was insufficient to decide a winner, so the duel had to be extended. 34 seconds were enough for the Swiss to overthrow Elnahas and thus score the fatal point by waza-ari.
Lying on the tatami, Elnahas had just lost his first fight. His Olympic solo experience had lasted less than five minutes.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
Regulation time was insufficient to decide a winner, so the duel had to be extended. 34 seconds were enough for the Swiss to overthrow Elnahas and thus score the fatal point by waza-ari.
“I didn’t feel really good, I don’t know why,” explained the third-ranked judoka in the world, pausing for a long time between each word, overcome by emotion.
“It happens sometimes, you wake up and it’s not your day. Usually you have to find a way, but I didn’t find it today.”
His trainer, Antoine Valois-Fortier, could only see the damage. “Disappointing day for Shady, it was a close fight. I may have found him a little hesitant, he lacked a little aggression. […] “Shady didn’t come here for that. He showed that he was among the world’s elite. He’s definitely going to be very disappointed,” he said, mumbling.
A wound
After his fight, Elnahas confirmed that he had been weakened by an injury, just before his arrival in Paris.
PHOTO OLIVIER JEAN, THE PRESS
“It happens sometimes, you wake up and it’s not your day. Usually you have to find a way, but I didn’t find it today,” Shady Elnahas said.
He fought with a bandage on his left hand, because four days before he was due to fly to his second Olympics, he had surgery on his thumbs due to a double fracture.
“I hadn’t done judo for a week and a half, two weeks.”
He still wanted to be there to try to do better than his fifth place in Tokyo.
“I removed the stitches [de suture] last night. It wasn’t ideal for me, but I knew I could fight and get a medal,” he said.
With a sore thumb, it becomes much more difficult to properly grip an opponent or even hang on to them if they become unbalanced. As physically complex as it may seem, Valois-Fortier could not help but wonder, “How much did that play between his ears?”
Even though he was still in shock from his protégé’s defeat, the triple Olympian knows how to recognize that “that’s what makes the Olympic Games beautiful and cruel. You get up, and then it’s today. It’s not tomorrow and it’s not yesterday.”
The course
Beyond the result, the grief of not being able to do himself justice was eating away at Elnahas. Based on his recent results, his status and his pass, losing his first fight of the day made the disappointment even more acute.
“I am vice-champion, it was my first world medal. It was a really demanding qualification, but [je ne suis] really not proud of my performance today. […] It is plate “to do two and a half years of work for a fight at the Olympic Games,” he said, wiping away tears.
In his reading of the fight, Valois-Fortier also takes into account the work done upstream. “Two months ago, Shady was still fighting for his place. Maybe the qualification process was long and demanding.”
This unexpected defeat is another hard blow for the Canadian judo team, after the seventh positions of Arthur Margelidon, François Gauthier-Drapeau and Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard.
Elnahas will therefore leave Paris with the worst result of the men’s team, for want of having been the only one to win a medal, as could have been expected.
“I will try to do another Olympic cycle,” he confirmed.
“But right now, I’m going to accept defeat and be with my family.”