2006 Pan American Championship Team Competition Results

May 27, 2006

U.S. Men Win Silver in the Pan Am Team Competition; Women Take Bronze

(Buenos Aires, Argentina) – After two days of intense individual matches, Team USA returned for one final day of competition at Saturday’s team event at the Pan Am Championships.

In the team event, each nation has five athletes competing with the team having the most wins of the five advancing to the next round. 

The U.S. Men picked up wins in their first two rounds over Venezuela and Puerto Rico to advance to the semi-final match against Argentina. 

Taylor Takata (Honolulu, Hawaii/Harlingen USA Judo National Training Site/66kg) and Garry St. Leger (Brooklyn, N.Y./Starrett Judo/90kg) each posted victories over their Argentinian counterparts while Ryan Reser (Colorado Springs, Colo./Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site/81kg) finished his portion of the competition at 1-1 with a loss to the 81kg bronze medalist Emmanuel Lucenti.  Djamaldin Aliev (Greenwood, Colo./European Judo/Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site/100kg) also dropped his match.

After much controversy regarding Argentina’s request to substitute in Eduardo Costa, a bronze medalist at 90kg, as an add-on for the final match, the heavyweight match began with the Argentinian request denied. 

With two wins earned for each team, Kirk Hoffmann (Colorado Springs, Colo./Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site/+100kg) needed to defeat Carlos Cisneros, a fifth-place finisher in the heavyweight division to put the Americans into the final.

“The moment Argentina came up, there was so much pressure just because they’re the home team and the whole crowd was on their side, so we knew we really wanted to win this,” Hoffmann said. “With the injuries people had and just a long week, no was really excited to fight in this event at first, but we slowly got into it and Israel (Hernandez, Team USA Coach) was in our face, pumping us up before every match.”

In an atmosphere reminiscent of several gold medal finals during the previous days, the crowd cheered for Cisneros while Team USA gathered just off the mat in one of the best shows of team spirit throughout the tournament to root on Hoffmann who secured the win, and a trip to the gold medal match, with a pin for ippon (instant win, similar to a knockout in boxing). 

“Really, I heard my 20 teammates more than the 500 Argentinians in the crowd who were all screaming and it was just great to have them cheering me on. This is probably the closest I’ve been to any team I’ve ever been on,” said Hoffmann, who also competed on the 2004 and 2005 Pan Am Teams as well as the 2005 World Team.

In the final, the Americans fought well throughout the match against a Brazilian team that had just defeated the heavily favored Cubans, but lost the round, 0-5, to win the silver medal.

The U.S. Men’s Team included Takata, St. Leger, Reser, Aliev, Hoffmann and Aaron Cohen (Buffalo Grove, Ill./NYAC/Cohen’s Judo/81kg) who split matches for the division with Reser.

Hoffmann and St. Leger were both rewarded for their respective 3-1 days with positions on the Pan American Judo Union All-Star Team for the day’s event.

On the women’s side, the Americans secured the bronze with a team win over Argentina. 

One of the biggest wins for the women, who went 7-9 on the day, was made by Katie Mocco (Glenville, N.Y./NYAC/Jason Morris Judo Center/70kg) who

defeated 70kg silver medalist Kelly Silva during the Brazil match.

Carrie Chandler (Scotia, N.Y./NYAC/Jason Morris Judo Center/52kg) also had a good day, claiming wins over Brazil and Argentina.

Nikki Kubes (Fort Worth, Texas/Fort Worth Judo/78kg) had a strong start to her match against 2005 World Champion Yunisel Laborde, the Cuban who defeated Kubes in the bronze medal final, but injured her knee in the middle of both athletes’ attempts for a throw and was out for the remainder of the competition. 

Valerie Gotay (Temecula, Calif./Judo America), a bronze medalist at 57kg, fought up to 63kg, posting wins over Argentina and Venezuela.

Eva Smith (Fall River, Mass./Taki-Gawa/+78kg) sealed the Americans’ bronze medal, winning the final match of the day with a victory over Argentina, throwing her opponent for ippon.

On her way back to join her team, Smith came over to an injured Kubes, smiled and said: “That was for you.”

In the men’s event, Brazil took the gold while Canada won the bronze medal.  In the women’s event, Cuba won the gold and Brazil the bronze.

“Most of the guys on the team hadn’t won a medal, so it became personal.  Some of us had bad days earlier in the week and we wanted to show that we’re better than that,” Hoffmann said. “We placed higher than Cuba and Canada who both won a bunch of medals in the individual tournament, so I think we made our statement.”

Overall, the U.S. Team won two silver and four bronze individual medals at this year’s Pan Ams in addition to Saturday’s medals.  The Pan Am Championships were the first step in qualification for the 2008 Olympic Games in which countries with top three (women) and top six (men) results over a series of events in the Pan Am region in each weight division will qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

Jason Morris (Scotia, N.Y./Jason Morris Judo Center) and Israel Hernandez (Harlingen, Texas/Harlingen USA Judo National Training Site) were the coaches for the U.S. Team.