Member News

February 2, 2007

U.S. Athletes Take on Belgian Open this Weekend

(Colorado Springs, Colo.) – After winning a record 11 medals at last weekend’s British Open in London, most of the team made the trip to Belgium for the Belgian Open this weekend.

The men will be competing in Vise while the women are several hours away at the Belgian Ladies Open in Arlon.

Ranked as a B-Level by the European Judo Union, the Belgian Open frequently features competition that is on-par or even tougher than many events on the World Cup circuit and this year is no exception.  With powerhouses Cuba and Japan both sending full teams, many of the top-ranked players in the world will be in attendance, including top-10 players Ronda Rousey (Wakefield, Mass. / NYAC / Pedro’s Judo Center / 63kg) and Ryan Reser (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site / 73kg).

The women’s tournament includes two days of competition with the junior (under 20) girls competing on Saturday and all of the senior (open age limit) athletes fighting on Sunday.  The senior division is said to have reached the maximum capacity at 300 players while the junior division is expected to have 250 across seven divisions.

Both junior and senior women’s divisions also feature a unique “pool” format.  In each division, athletes are broken into a series of pools with three or four players.  Each pool is fought as a round-robin with the top two players advancing to the main draw.  This increases the number of matches needed to win with a gold medalist possibly having as many as seven or eight matches during the day.

As all of the U.S. juniors will be competing in both divisions, there is the advantage of getting to face many of the same players they will see the next day in advance as well as having the opportunity to fight matches on back-to-back days.  With nine athletes competing in junior divisions, look for several Americans to be in the hunt on Saturday.

Last year, Franchesca Durand (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site) won the only medal for the Americans – a bronze at 52kg.  Durand has grown a great deal as a player and won her first European senior medal last week when she beat four-time U.S. National Champion Carrie Chandler (Glenville, N.Y. / NYAC / Jason Morris Judo Center) to win gold at the British.

Jeanette Rodriguez (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 48kg) went 1-2 at last year’s junior event, failing to make it out of her pool.  A year later, though, Rodriguez has established herself as the athlete to watch in the junior division.  After winning Senior Nationals and the U.S. Open in 2006, the 16-year-old won gold in Britain in one of the women’s toughest divisions.  

Junior World Team members Brittni Bradford (San Antonio, Texas / Universal Judo / +78kg), Kayla Harrison (Middletown, Ohio / Renshuden / 70kg) and Marina Shafir (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / 78kg) also will be competing. 

Other U.S. athletes fighting in the U-20 division include:

• Veronica Prado (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 48kg)
• Angelica Delgado (Miami, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 57kg)
• Hana Carmichael (Wellington, Fla. / Budokan Judo / 57kg)
• Pauline Macias (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site / 57kg)
• Natalie Laursen (Livermore, Calif. / Amador Judo / 63kg)

In the women’s senior divisions, Rousey comes in as the reigning champion at 63kg who won her fourth European title in a year last week at the British Open.  Among the athletes she may face this weekend are Marie-Helene Chisholm (CAN), a fifth-place finisher at the Athens Olympic Games and 2005 Worlds, and Alice Schlesinger (ISR), a bronze medalist at the 2004 Junior Worlds in the 57kg division.  

Rousey has fought, and beat, Chisholm repeatedly, including two wins in Belgium last year and another in the final of the 2005 Pan Ams.  Schlesinger upset Rousey at the 2005 World Championships, but Rousey won their last two matches decisively in Belgium last year as well as the bronze medal match of the 2006 Junior Worlds.

In fact, Rousey only lost four matches during the entire 2006 season and two of her opponents from those losses will be fighting this weekend.  

Cuba has doubled their odds in the 63kg division by bringing 2006 Pan Am Champion Yaritza Abel and 2006 Junior World Champion Onix Cortes.

Abel and Rousey have split their matches as Rousey took the win at the 2005 Leonding World Cup and Abel threw Rousey early in the Pan Am final last year.  Cortes and Rousey fought a controversial semifinal match at the Junior Worlds in which Cortes took the match after a controversial call that gave her a win by ippon (instant win).

Valerie Gotay (Harlingen, Texas / Harlingen USA Judo National Training Site) was plagued by injuries throughout much of the 2006 European season, but she has had numerous strong performances over top players, winning four B-Level titles since September.  Last week Gotay dominated the British Open, trouncing nearly all of her opponents in less than a minute each.  Much like Rousey, Gotay also will have a Cuban with which to contend.  Yurisleidis Lupetey, a former World Champion and Athens bronze medalist, is a tactical player known for beating her opponents on penalties which proved to be the case for Gotay in 2006 when Lupetey won both of their matches at the Paris Super World Cup and the Pan Am Championships.

Rodriguez has the potential to fight for a medal in the 48kg division with a good draw.   Amid the mix in this division will be 2005 World Champion Yanet Bermoy (CUB) and Isabelle Latulippe (CAN), a silver medalist at last week’s Sofia World Cup and the 2006 Paris Super World Cup.

Last year’s bronze medalist at 52kg Carrie Chandler (Glenville, N.Y. / NYAC / Jason Morris Judo Center) finished second at the British, but will be competing in the 57kg division this weekend.  A former National Champion at 57kg, Chandler hasn’t competed internationally in the division since 2004.

Other athletes competing include all of the juniors listed above as well as:

• Sayaka Matsumoto (El Cerrito, Calif. / NYAC / East Bay Judo Institute / 48kg)
• Ann Shiraishi (Elk Grove, Calif. / East Bay Judo Institute / 48kg)
• Michelle Sternick (Mansfield, Pa. / Mansfield Judo / 48kg)
• Anna Palmer (Colorado Sprins, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site / 52kg)
• Nicole Archuleta (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site / 63kg)
• Nina Cutro-Kelly (Albany, N.Y. / Universal Judo / 78kg)
• Lisa Uemura (Salinas, Calif. / Salinas Judo / 78kg)

The men’s tournament also is among the most difficult of the EJU B-Levels with last year’s divisions ranging in size from 24 players in the 100kg division to 68 at 73kg.

Reser won a bronze medal here last year before going on to win two World Cup silver medals and will be back again this weekend aiming for another rpodium finish.  

Many of the U.S. men’s medalists from the British Open will be competing this weekend, including heavyweight champion Kirk Hoffmann (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site) and bronze medalists Radu Brestyan (Wakefield, Mass. / Team FORCE / 73kg), Justin Flores (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / San Shi / 66kg), Travis Stevens (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / 81kg) and Daniel McCormick (Wakefield, Mass. / Team FORCE).

Among the competitors at this year’s event will be nine men’s players from Cuba as well as full teams from Russia and Japan.

The men’s 60kg, 73kg, 90kg and +100kg divisions will compete on Saturday.  The 66kg, 81kg and 100kg divisions will fight on Sunday.

Other U.S. athletes competing in the men’s divisions include the following:

• Nick Kossor (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / 60kg)
• Josh O’Neil (Colorado Springs, Colo. / Olympic Training Center USA Judo National Training Site / 66kg)
• Nate Torra (El Cerrito, Calif. / East Bay Judo Institute / 66kg)
• Chuck Jefferson (San Jose, Calif. / San Jose State University / 73kg)
• Bobby Lee (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 73kg)
• AJ Silverman (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / 73kg)
• Yuko Sin (Glenville, N.Y. / Jason Morris Judo Center / 81kg)
• Phillip Spano (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 81kg)
• Rick Hawn (Wakefield, Mass. / Team FORCE / 81kg)
• Adler Volmar (Coral Springs, Fla. / North Miami USA Judo National Training Site / 100kg)

“We’re all very pleased with how the team did last week and for many of these athletes Belgium will be challenging because this is the first time they have done back-to-back tournaments in Europe,” said Ed Liddie (Colorado Springs, Colo.), USA Judo Director of Athlete Performance.  “I was very pleased with the professionalism shown by both the coaches and the athletes as well as the sense of team camaraderie that has developed during the past week.”

For complete results of both the men’s and women’s tournaments, visit www.usjudo.org.