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Judo lands Laass on international medal podium

A silver medal for herself and Canada was the perfect way for Lavanna Laass to end her first-ever European tour as a judo athlete.
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Handout photo

A silver medal for herself and Canada was the perfect way for Lavanna Laass to end her first-ever European tour as a judo athlete.

Laass, a 20-year-old from Prince George, was part of a Canadian contingent that competed in Portugal, Germany and Scotland last month. At the Scotland tournament, held in Edinburgh, she won three of her four matches and was rewarded with the glittering souvenir.

"It was incredible - I was super happy with my performance there," said Laass, a longtime member of the Hart Judo Academy who is currently living and training in Lethbridge. "I had been kind of frustrated in my past two competitions (in Portugal and Germany) because I hadn't quite been able to pull through to the third round. But it was awesome to finally get my judo all together and have it all work out for me so that I could win my first three matches."

Laass was in the minus-63-kilogram junior women's division. In those first three bouts, she defeated two opponents from Scotland and one from Sweden.

"The last couple, they were really strong competitors and I was quite happy with the way that I fought and that I was able to beat them," she said.

In the final, Laass met up with a rival and training partner, Hana Varsanyi of Lethbridge. The two of them also clashed for gold at the 2015 Canada Winter Games in Prince George, and, on that occasion, Varsanyi used a chokehold to get the better of Laass. In the overseas rematch, Laass battled as hard as she could but was hindered by a knee injury she sustained earlier in the trip.

"I didn't realize how weak it was," she said. "I thought I could fight but it gave out on me again and my judo went way downhill from there.

"I fought all the way through, but it wasn't good. I had a bunch of penalties stacked up against me and then (Varsanyi) threw me for a point, which is what I ended up losing by. It was unfortunate but at least both Canadians got on the podium."

Laass, who often works out with Varsanyi in Lethbridge, said she has closed the gap between them.

"I felt like I could beat her but it was really unfortunate that my knee gave out," Laass said.

At the tournaments in Portugal (city of Coimbra) and Germany (near Berlin), Laass finished with 1-1 records.

Each event was followed by a training camp that featured instruction by national-level coaches Jean-Pierre Cantin, Sergio Pessoa, Ewan Beaton, Janusz Pawlowski and Scott Tanner. Getting the chance to learn from Cantin and company was invaluable for Laass.

"It was great to have an outside opinion on my judo, (one) that was sort of different from someone who knows me so well, like my (HJA) coach Bruce (Kamstra)," said Laass, who started out in the Hart club 13 years ago. "Working with these coaches, everyone kind of had something different to say.

"It was just little (suggestions)," she added. "During the training camps it was really handy because they would watch me fight girls in my division and then they would coach me while I was fighting them (in the tournaments) and I really appreciated that. It gave me a chance to kind of work on things and it helped me a lot just because sometimes I'd have trouble figuring out kind of what to do against different girls in my division."

When Laass wasn't on the judo mat, she got the chance to do some touring with the other Canadian athletes. Her favourite outing was a trip to the Scottish highlands.

"We basically went on a tour bus and we got to see all of Scotland," she said. "It was like an eight- or nine-hour trip. It was really neat. We got to go up to Loch Ness, which historically is where Nessie the monster is from.

"And it was just really cool to experience the different cultures and stuff. Going to Portugal was really neat - we got to walk in and around the city and just kind of look at how everything worked there. And in Germany, we were kind of in the middle of nowhere but it was really cool because it was very German. Everyone spoke German, we were completely immersed in that culture because there was no English. It was really neat to see all of that, and to be able to do judo as well, it was phenomenal."

Laass was away for about three weeks and arrived back in Lethbridge last Friday. Next on her competition schedule is the Canadian national championship tournament, set for May in Calgary. At nationals, she plans to represent B.C. in the junior and senior divisions.

Then, after a summer back in Prince George, Laass will move to Montreal, where she will attend school (hopefully at Concordia University as a sociology and psychology student) and work on her judo at the national training centre. Her long-term goal is to get more international experience and to fight for Canada at the 2024 Olympics.

Laass said that until recently she didn't envision judo taking her to such heights.

"Not at all - not until the last couple of years," she said. "If you would have asked me that when I started, I would have thought you were crazy."