Member News

June 23, 2006

Ambouroue, Volmar and Lafon Win Medals in Colombia

Adler Volmar (Miami, Fla./North Miami USA Judo National Training Site) won silver medals in both the 100kg and Open divisions at the D-Level Fecoljudo Cup, June 16 in Cartagena, Colombia.

Volmar, who won the Puerto Rico Open earlier in April, advanced through both of his divisions to the final against Luciano Correa (BRA), last year’s World Championship bronze medalist, but lost in both finals to win the silver.

The next day, Volmar had his third chance with the Brazilian when he competed in the 100kg final of the Jigoro Kano Cup.  Volmar lost a close match to Correa, but came away with many lessons learned.

“The main thing I think is that I really fought him better each match.  I obviously could’ve done better, but by the second day I was able to fight to my strengths and was really improving on my gripping,” Volmar said.

Volmar is the #2-ranked American in his division and represented Haiti at the 1996 Olympic Games.  Now a U.S. citizen, Volmar is hoping to compete for the United States in Beijing.

“I’ve been doing great with Jhonny and German (Prado and Velazco, North Miami’s Head Coaches) and I’m looking forward to training for the rest of the events this summer,” Volmar said. “I know we’ve never had a gold medal at the Olympics before and that’s my goal.  Someone has to be the one to have the dream in order to make it come true.”

Landry Ambouroue (North Richland Hills, Texas/Ruben Martin Judo/90kg) also won his second medal on the Pan Am Tour, claiming a silver medal after a final loss to Alexis Chiclana (PUR) who finished fifth at the Pan Ams in May.

In the second day’s event, Ambouroue won his division coming back from being down by a waza-ari to Jorge Estrada (VEN) in the final to throw Estrada for ippon to win gold.

After a rough first day in which she finished fifth overall, Natalie Lafon (Harlingen, Texas/Harlingen USA Judo National Training Site/52kg) came back to win a silver medal in the Jigoro Kano Copa, posting wins that included victories over the previous day’s gold and silver medalists – Natalie Soria (ECU)  and Melissa Rodriguez (ARG), a 2006 Pan Am silver medalist.