Lavanna Laass wants to upgrade the bronze medal she won last year at the Canadian Judo championship.
"Gold or silver that's my goal," said the member of the Hart Judo Academy. "I'm training. I'm focusing. [Less than] a week now until I get to prove myself."
The 17-year-old is one of 28 Prince George judokas heading to Richmond for the 2013 Canadian Judo championship, starting Thursday. Laass has a dozen under-18 competitors in her weight class to beat out if she wants to bring the gold medal home to Prince George.
"There are tons of good athletes in my category but I feel like if I just perform my best and keep my focus I'll be able to compete as well as any of them," said Laass.
In September, the Kelly Road secondary high school student, said she's joining the PacificSport School in order to improve her training and to learn how to get better mentally prepared for competitions.
The change in her academic routine is all part of Laass' plan to be at the top of her sport in two years when the 2015 Canada Winter Games come to Prince George.
"My goal is to medal, preferably gold," said Laass. "Right now I'm sizing up where I am now and where I want to be in the future for Canada Games and then figure out where I can better myself and what I can do to improve so that when it gets to that big competition I'm ready.
"I feel like I'm on the path to it and I feel good about where I am but I know I can definitely improve myself to get to that stage," she added.
Laass said she fell in love with judo when her dad introduced her to it when she was six.
"It's what I live for," she said.
In addition to her dad and Bruce Kamstra, head sensei at the Hart Judo Academy, Laass said she has learned a lot from Christian Schenk, who competed for Canada in international events for 15 years.
"His experience and his coaching has taught me a lot," said Laass. "He's very supportive and he gives very good criticism, it's productive and it really helps me to improve myself. He knows a lot about everything too so if I have troubles I know I can always ask him and he'll be able to provide me with an answer."
Laass said someday she'd like to travel to international judo events herself.
"I want to go every where, all over the world if I can," she said. "If I can travel and do something that I love as well, what more do you want? That's the perfect goal in life."
After competing in Richmond this weekend, the next immediate goal for Laass is to obtain her black belt.
"I thought I was going to be testing [in June] actually, unfortunately I was not able to get a ride down to Vancouver so we've had to postpone it until December," she said.
