Christa Deguchi of Lethbridge, Alberta won the gold medal at the 2022 Judo World Masters in Jerusalem, Israel on Tuesday. The event is a prestigious competition of the International Judo Federation.
Deguchi competed in Pool D, where she beat Pauline Starke of Germany and Tsukasa Yoshida of Japan. In the semi-finals, Deguchi defeated Mimi Huh of South Korea, and then Sarah Leonie Cysique of France. Huh and Yoshida each won the bronze medal.
This was the 11th Judo World Masters. Deguchi earned Canada’s sixth medal in the history of the event, and on Tuesday became Canada’s first ever gold medalist. The previous three medalists were Kelita Zupancic of Whitby, Ontario (silver, women’s 70 kilogram middleweight division) in 2013 in Tyumen, Russia, Arthur Margelidon of Montreal, Quebec (silver, men’s 73 kilogram lightweight division) in 2018 in Guangzhou, China, and Canadian Olympic bronze medalist Jessica Klimkait of Whitby, Ontario (bronze, women’s 57 kilogram lightweight division), in 2018 in Guangzhou, China, in 2019 in Qingdao, China, and in 2021 in Doha, Qatar. Klimkait won the bronze medal in women’s judo at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021.
The gold medal for Deguchi in Jerusalem will give her confidence as she prepares for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. However to represent Canada, she will have to get by Klimkait, which will be no easy task.
