Seventeen-year-old judoka Abby Lloyd returned from a trip to central Canada with two silver medals as she continues to build experience in high level judo matches.
She went to Montreal at the beginning of November for the Quebec Open, an international tournament which included fighters from Brazil, United States, Russia and various European countries.
“It was quite a bit bigger than nationals,” said Lloyd, explaining that it was about double the size of a national competition with about 800 fighters attending.
Lloyd, who turned 17 a week after the open, fought in the minus-48 kilogram under-21 women’s and senior women’s divisions.
She took silver in both divisions.
In Lloyd’s first under-21 match she went up against an American fighter who she had seen fight last year.
“I ended up throwing her with a drop throw,” she said.
Lloyd lost her second match, but it was close with her opponent winning by only half a point.
“I managed to fight my way back in my third and gave a collar choke on the girl to give me the silver,” she said.
In the senior women’s division, Lloyd said she had been having a great day fighting until her last match. She won her first with a choke, her second on penalties and her third on a drop throw. Her fourth fight was tougher.
“I was fighting against this girl who had come down from a higher weight class and I really wasn’t expecting her to be there,” Lloyd said, explaining that her competitor had a lot more experience fighting in the division. “It wasn’t my day for the final.”
Lloyd had her opponent in a choke hold on the ground and the referee stopped the match and stood the fighters up. From that point Lloyd was thrown for a full point and lost.
“We worry about the things we can control, not the ones we can’t,” she said. “And we can’t control the reffing.”
Despite her loss, Lloyd said she is pleased with her results in the divisions.
This is the first year that she has fought in both divisions. Her coach, Blake Tsuyuki from the Burnaby Judo Club, suggested the move to gain more experience. She is also looking at competing in more seniors’ competitions in South America. Lloyd fought in the PanAm Games in Colombia last year.
She said Tsuyuki, a new coach for her this season, was happy with her results and he saw progression of her technical skills and focus throughout her matches. “I felt like I improved a lot,” she said. “That’s one of the things that my coach focuses on. He wants to see improvement. He said that he’d rather see me do well at a world championship level than at a lesser level.”
She explained that at this level of fighting, opponents wait to capitalize on one mistake to win matches. “It’s really just a fight against myself,” she said. “At this level you can do a hundred things right and one thing wrong and still lose.”
The intensity of competition increases as an athlete progresses in judo, she added. “When you start out as a youngster and you’ve got some skills and talent, you may beat everyone with no problem, but as you get up in these higher levels and internationally, things get a lot more equal and you’re not winning by huge amounts of points anymore. It gets harder.”
