Canada's Deguchi to go for gold in women's Olympic judo

PARIS — Christa Deguchi didn't even know the full extent of Canadian history she had made in her Olympics debut.

"It's the first gold medal for the women, right?" she asked reporters with bruises on her face and neck.

Her eyes widened when told it wasn't just women before replying, "I thought there was one guy before that, no?"

The 28-year-old won Canada's first-ever Olympic gold medal in judo with a win over South Korea's Huh Mimi in the under-57 kilogram category at Arena Champ-de-Mars on Monday. The gold adds to Deguchi's impressive resume that includes four world championship medals (two gold, one silver, one bronze).

When informed of her accomplishment, her jaw dropped saying, "Ohhhhh — yay, yay to me. I didn't know that.

"And the first gold medal for all sports for Canada? Yeah, hey, hey, hey. I'm the number 1," she added flashing a wide smile.

Deguchi, the world's top-ranked female judoka, defeated Huh in the final when the South Korean was flagged for a false attack in sudden-death overtime, giving her a match-ending third penalty.

It was a measure of revenge for Deguchi, who lost to No. 3 Huh in the under-57 kg final at the 2024 world championships.

"Yes, it's my revenge match so I do feel good," Deguchi said. "But I wanted to throw so it wasn't like the best moment. But still, I won. I'm happy."

She advanced to the final with a win over crowd favourite and No. 5 Sarah-Léonie Cysique of France. Deguchi admitted Cysique was her toughest matchup, having hurt her right knee and Cysique changing things up from the few other times they had squared off.

Cysique went on to beat Georgia's Eteri Liparteliani for bronze, while Japan's Haruka Funakubo won the other bronze-medal contest over Brazil's Rafaela Silva.

The semifinal against Cysique also ended with a match-ending penalty in the sudden-death overtime. It led to the crowd rooting against Deguchi in her gold-medal final but something Deguchi acknowledged she was "quite lucky" for as she felt she wasn't quite on her game near the end of the tournament format.

However, no self-critiquing of her performances or wins by penalty could take away from her big moment.

Deguchi was chosen to represent Canada at the Games after she won silver at worlds in May, while fellow Canadian and world No. 2 Jessica Klimkait took bronze.

A national organizing committee can qualify a maximum of one athlete per event/weight category. However, if an NOC has more than one athlete ranked in the top 17 of a weight category, the NOC can decide which athlete receives the quota spot for that event.

And that was Deguchi, who saw Klimkait selected over her for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The two were on a path to face each other in 2020 for the lone spot for Tokyo, but it never happened after Klimkait suffered a knee injury and competition was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Klimkait eventually secured the spot in the Olympics after winning the 2021 world title and then became the first Canadian woman to stand on an Olympic podium, earning bronze.

The journey to get to Paris since then has been a long one for Deguchi.

"I still can't believe that I've done it," she said of her golden moment. "It's been a long journey for me to come to Paris."

"After COVID, everything changed," she added. "I was hoping that I could go to the Tokyo Olympics so I was very sad back then (that) I didn't see the Olympics. It's just been three years (between) Tokyo and Paris but it felt (like) a very long time for me because of the qualification."

Deguchi lives and trains in Japan, the country of her birth. She has competed for Canada since 2017 through her Canadian father. Deguchi opted to compete for Canada after having previously been on the Japanese national team.

"I'm proud (that) this Maple Leaf will go in the highest part of the podium," she said. "(And) I'm happy to see the Canadian flag (at the medal ceremony)."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 29, 2024.