Jeff Allen extended his streak of podium performances with a silver medal over the Victoria Day weekend at the Canadian Judo Championships in Calgary. The second-place finish also secured a berth for the Huntsville fighter at the upcoming World Championships to be held in Fort Lauderdale this November.
It’s another step in the road for Allen, who in just a handful of years has gone from an unknown commodity in the judo scene to one of the best in the country. The Huntsville dad will now set his sights on a busy training schedule over the summer in the hopes of bringing home more hardware this fall on the international stage.
“I’ve been training more than ever, at different clubs all over the province, and working with some of the top coaches in Ontario,” said Allen after the tournament. “I felt very prepared. Now I want to come home with a medal from the Worlds.”
The extra work has served Allen especially well in recent months, pushing him to multiple gold and silver medals in his last two provincial tournaments before claiming second place at the national level. Having won gold the previous year, Allen just missed out on consecutive championships to James McManus, a former national champion and Pan-American athlete.
(Above from left) Hidden Valley Resort is one of Allen’s sponsors; Jeff Allen with Scott Doughty, General Manager of Hidden Valley Resort. “Travel and accommodations can be a big expense for individual athletes like Jeff,” said Doughty. “We are happy to sponsor him to help him reach his goals.”
“James McManus, he’s tough. I’ve fought him a couple times now, and he’s a four- or five-time national champion himself,” said Allen. “It was back and forth and very close, but he ended up catching me with a hold there at the end. His size alone is hard to deal with, he’s 6’3″ and well over 300 pounds, he’s a big guy and has been doing this since he was a kid. There’s no shame losing to a guy like that.”
Not wasting any time upon returning home, Allen travelled stateside to Niagara Falls, New York this past weekend to compete in the 44th annual Am-Can International Judo Challenge. Once again, the Huntsville fighter showed his class in bringing home another silver from a tournament featuring a high level of competition including some very big men.
“It’s a huge accomplishment for me in an international event,” said Allen after the weekend, where the heat and humidity in the 40-degree arena wore down the competitors nearly as much as the fighting itself. The challenging environment gave Allen the opportunity to show off his conditioning as a four-season judoka, giving him the edge over the majority of the field.
“In a lot of cases, through the summer judo slows down,” he explains. “The sheer heat, wearing a gi that weighs 20-25 pounds, you’re basically putting on a snowsuit and having to train. A lot of people don’t like to do that, but I go twice as hard in the summer. It’s good conditioning and I’ll just keep going straight through until the Worlds.”
Allen also hopes to have earned his black belt by the end of the year, another accolade to add to the impressive medal collection he has put together in a relatively short but very distinguished judo career.
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