He owns two medals from the senior national championships. One is silver, the other bronze. This weekend, Stefan Zwiers will do everything in his power to add a splash of gold to his collection.
Zwiers, a 21-year-old judoka who developed his skills at the Prince George Judo Club, is in Edmonton for the national tournament. He's the top-ranked athlete in the under-100-kilogram weight class and wants desperately to live up to his billing.
"It would be a lot of relief to win," he said. "I had a couple years where I was feeling very confident and just had some bad luck. It feels like it's been a while that I've been trying for this. I'd be very happy to win gold. I'm No. 1 in my division right now so winning gold would really show people that I deserve to be No. 1."
Zwiers said he'll likely be one of six competitors in the division. He expects his main competition to come from Alberta's Robert Edwards, a guy he has battled several times in the past but never beaten.
"I'm hoping this is the year," Zwiers said. "He's a strong left-handed fighter so I've really got to control his sleeves. He's got good hip movement too, so I've really got to control that sleeve and don't let him get his hips in for a throw."
For the past three years, Zwiers has been honing his craft at Judo Canada's national training centre in Montreal. The experience he has gained has brought him to his highest point yet as a judoka.
"It helps a lot," he said. "There's international judo there and some of the strongest fighters in Canada so it has really brought my judo up. Prince George really helped bring me to a place they could but they were lacking that international calibre so Montreal really helped me with that."
Senior nationals isn't a qualifying event for other major competitions but if Zwiers does grab gold, he would greatly improve his chances of representing Canada at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, in October.
While Zwiers will be making his third appearance at senior nationals, Prince George's Doug Gould will be there for the first time. Gould, a 30-year-old from the Hart Judo Academy, is entered in the under-81kg category and is trying not to set his sights too high.
"Honestly, if I win a couple matches I'll be happy," he said. "These guys [in my weight class] have been training out of Montreal -- they train twice a day, six days a week so it's tough to compete against that when you're working full time and you've got a family. I just want to go and win a couple -- maybe give a good guy a tough fight."
Gould, a supervisor at P.G. Pulp, recently tested for and received his second-degree black belt. He has qualified for senior nationals three other times in his career but, because the championships were always too far away from home, he opted not to go.
Gould considers his power his biggest asset.
"I'm usually stronger than most of the guys," he said. "I have a wrestling background too, so that kind of throws some guys off. I wrestled all through high school -- was second in B.C. championships and got a bronze for the Canadian championships back in '93."
Paul Bryant of the North Capital Judo Club and Aven Briggs of the PGJC will also be on the mats at this weekend's nationals. Bryant will do battle in the over-100kg class and Briggs will test his skills in the under-73kg division.
