TOKYO 鈥� 91原创 judokas Fran莽ois Gauthier-Drapeau and Kyle Reyes earned bronze medals Sunday at the Tokyo Grand Slam judo event.
Gauthier-Drapeau, form Alma, Que., finished with a bronze in the men's under-81 kg category when opponent David Karapetyan failed to show up for the medal bout.
鈥淢y opponent hurt his shoulder in the match before ours. To be honest, I鈥檓 very glad to accept the medal, but I would have liked to fight for it," Gauthier-Drapeau said.
"It always feels a bit weird when you take your bows and then it鈥檚 suddenly all over. There鈥檚 something missing."
Gauthier-Drapeau opened with a decisive win over South Korea鈥檚 Woojin Choi before losing to Japan鈥檚 Sotaro Fujiwara, despite scoring the first point of the match. Fujiwara went on to won gold.
In the repechage, Gauthier-Drapeau bounced back with an overtime win over Japan鈥檚 Yoshito Hojo to advance to one of the bronze medal finals.
Reyes had a much different path to a medal.
The judoka from Brampton, Ont., defeated Japan鈥檚 Koki Kumasaka for under-100 kg bronze in a match that went over 10 minutes.
Kumasaka had earlier defeated Toronto's Shady ElNahas, who injured his hand in the second-round match.
鈥淭he bronze medal match was extremely long. It was very difficult physically, but (Kyle) controlled the fight well and ended up on the podium," said coach Antoine Valois-Fortier. "He scored some nice points all day today by demonstrating good technique. It was a very good tournament for him."
Reyes defeated South Korea鈥檚 Dohun Choi before losing his quarterfinal match to Japan鈥檚 Dota Arai, who also claimed a bronze medal. Reyes secured his spot in the a bronze medal match by defeating Enkhbayar Altanshagai of Mongolia in the repechage.
Gauthier-Drapeau鈥檚 returned to the under-81 kg class less than a month after he won gold in the under-90 kg category at the Continental Cup in Montreal.
鈥淕oing down in weight after several months is always pretty tough," he said. "I hadn鈥檛 fought in the under-81 kg division since the Olympics. It鈥檚 painful, and it wasn鈥檛 easy, but I think this confirms that under-81 kg is the right weight category for me."
This report by The 91原创 Press was first published Dec. 8, 2024.
The 91原创 Press
