The Northern Capital Judo Club recently saw massive success at the Edmonton International Judo Championships.
The competition, held March 7- 9 at the West Edmonton Mall, is a yearly event that involves more than 1,200 coaches, participants and event staff.
Despite that large number of competitors, the 10 judokas from Northern Capital Judo Club managed to distinguish themselves, bringing home two gold medals, four silver medals and four bronze medals, with the youngest victor being 11 years old and the oldest being 62.
This is a list of the winners and their categories:
Gold:
- Olivia Wisniowski, U16 Female +70kg
- Ronald Beauchesne, Veteran Men M5 Advanced +100kg
Silver:
- Ivy Beauchesne, U12 Female
- Olivia Wisniowski, U21 Female +78kg
- Ivan Pilcik, Newaza competition (groundwork only)
- Eric Willms, Veteran Men Advanced M3 +100kg
Bronze:
- Kiya Wisniowski, U16 Female -63kg
- Paul Bryant, Veteran Men M4 Advanced +100kg
- Simon Wisniowski, bronze in 2 divisions: Veteran Men -90kg and Senior Men Intermediate -90kg
“Everybody was pretty happy,” said club owner and silver medallist Ivan Pilcik. “Some of the guys that went haven't been in tournaments for many years. One of our black belts hasn't been in tournaments for at least over 10 years. Then he came back with a gold medal. He did awesome. So everybody that went did good. We have some young girls between 14 and 16 and they got gold and silvers, everybody's pretty happy about it for sure.”
Pilcik told The Citizen that competitors trained for several months leading up to the competition, with the focus being on cardio and improved technique
“We do groundwork, like grappling,” said Pilcik. “We also do a lot of stand-up fighting, a lot of throwing, gripping, throwing. Because the tournament starts with you standing up. A lot of judo is started that way, then you have to throw the person down, so there's a lot of training to do with the throwing end of it. There is also another competition called Ne-waza, which is just strictly groundwork. So the competition does have now one division for that.”
The Northern Capital Judo Club has 60 members and has been around since 2000, with Pilcik taking over in 2017 from his instructor, Christian Haasett.
Pilcik is proud to be a member of the Prince George Judo Community, which he said is surprisingly large, with three clubs including his own spread across the city.
Currently, Northern Capital Judo Club is preparing for the The Canadian Open National Judo Championships which will take place in Calgary at the Olympic Oval from May 15-18.
