Canada's Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard wins silver medal at judo world championships
Montreal native, 2021 Olympic medallist loses to Japan's Haruka Kaju in extra time
Canada's Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard took the silver medal in the under-63-kilogram weight class at the world judo championships Monday after losing the final bout in extra time.
Japan's Haruka Kaju, unbeaten since her World Judo Tour debut last year, withstood Beauchemin-Pinard's ground game and scored a pin for ippon — or full point — in "golden score" sudden death.
It was the second world championship silver for Beauchemin-Pinard, who also finished runner-up in 2022.
The 30-year-old from Montreal also won bronze in the weight class at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2019 and 2020 Pan American championships.
Three of her four wins came by ippon, but she couldn't continue her dominance against the Japanese rising star.
"It's still really fresh and I think it's going to take me a few more days to digest this defeat, because I felt I could have beaten [Kaju]," Beauchemin-Pinard said.
Still, Beauchemin-Pinard said she was proud to reach the podium.
"I'm thrilled with my result," she said. "Obviously, immediately after the fight, I was disappointed because the gold medal was well within reach. I felt like I'd lost the gold rather than won silver, but as the day went on, I realized that I had put in a great day's fighting."
In other action, Francois Gauthier-Drapeau of Alma, Que., lost his first bout in the under-81 kg category to Zaur Dvalashvili of Georgia.
